


ETHAN BELLAMY

by vanhunks



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 126,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanhunks/pseuds/vanhunks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they return to the Alpha Quadrant, Janeway is subjected to and near collapse after the particularly strenuous and intensive debriefings and court-martial. Ethan Bellamy, a former Starfleet officer and cellist, a recluse, finds the near dying Janeway on his property and nurses her back to health.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. HOMECOMING

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE:
> 
> 1\. This is the first story I've written in which I've paired Janeway with an original character, a story that will sustain this pairing to the end. There  
> are J/C elements as well as C/7 but the primary pairing here is J/Original character.  
> 2\. The story is a multipart story.  
> 3\. A grateful 'thank you' to Mary Stark who has always been so obliging in betareading my work.  
> 4\. The first chapters as well as some of the parts later on in the story contain large segments of internal dialogue. Janeway's thoughts [ and later, Ethan Bellamy] are written without the quotation marks, while the character or characters who respond to her is written in italics in  
> order to establish to the reader the character speaking and thus avoid confusion, hopefully.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns Janeway and Chakotay. The character Ethan is, however, my own. 
> 
> Acknowledgement - Mary Stark, for the editing of this story.

* * *

 

**_Ethan Bellamy_ **

**_a novel pairing Janeway with an original character_ **

**_Introduction_ **

A thread on VAMB - The Voyagerangel Message Board - on the pairing of Janeway with an original character was what started the germ of the idea for this story. I have never paired Janeway before with an original character and thought it might be a good way of exploring someone uniquely created that did not necessarily ascribe to an already pre-set characterisation such as some crew and the officers of Voyager.

As it always happens when my muse hits me, there was an instant image of a man - his appearance strangely enough inspired by a gentleman who trains for dancesport with his wife as partner. With this man's picture in my head all the time, the rest of Ethan's body soon appeared. I made his hair white [something that could change later as I saw fit for the development of the storyline] and his eyes green, a tribute to a former very good friend of mine. Then, I had to decide whether to put him in uniform, which I did, and also, to give the character a little more dimension - so I made him a writer who happens to play the cello very well.

I had in mind so many things that the first few chapters were constantly being revised. I made the setting the state of Oregon and gave Ethan a mountain cabin called Beaver's Lodge, after the state animal of Oregon. I wanted him to indulge in outdoor activities since he lived mostly in his cabin, so I studied the geographical features of Curry County - to the south coast of Oregon, where there are high cliffs with mountain ranges forming the stunning backdrop of the Pacific Northwest.

When I decided to give Ethan some angst, even deep angst, I thought that since I've decided to make him a (former) Starfleet officer, I'd have something happen to him "ten, eleven years ago", and looking at the Trek timeline, found that the event that best fitted that statement was the Battle of Wolf 359. Got some great insight through my research on that battle, as the Borg formed the backbone of that confrontation between them and the Federation.

I felt I had taken a chance on this kind of pairing as so many readers are avid and die-hard J/Cers and I was in turmoil as to whether the story  would have a readership. It was really heartening to see readers on their part taking a chance and reading "Ethan Bellamy" or "EB"! as it came to be known.

Ethan Bellamy took approximately eight months to write. During that time I had suffered some trauma through bereavement, been myself in grave angst over many aspects of the story. There were times I felt like giving up on it, then thought that it wouldn't do at all. I vowed to finish it and leave the story out there, another contentious issue arising from recent happenings in which such hypothesis had been put to me.

Unlike Ethan, I wanted to share what I had written, no matter how much I've invested emotionally in the story. When the time came to write "The End" I felt exhausted, drained, on the downward ride of the rollercoaster I'd been on for so long. I was sad, very sad to part finally from a character who had, it seemed, become almost real to me. For a long time he had been real. I suddenly picked out men in a crowd whom I imagined should look like Ethan!

This story has spawned fanart from readers who were inspired by the story, or particular chapters. It spawned poetry from readers who were inspired. It also inspired readers to find pictures of men whom they thought could be Ethan look-alikes . I'm not sure whether this has happened for other fanfics but it's certainly the first of my own stories to have generated this kind of interest. So I thank all my readers who participated, who had some connection with the story, who enjoyed reading Ethan Bellamy.

***

CHAPTER 1: HOMECOMING

 

 _For I have learned_  
_To look on nature, not as in the hour_  
_Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes_  
_The still, sad music of humanity -_

 

                                    William Wordsworth

  


*

 They were home.

 Crew were reunited with parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, loved ones. The constant buzz of sounds and movement created a haze in which she felt swallowed by grey swirling mists, unable to see straight ahead, or knowing which way to turn.

 She heard laughter – bright laughter. She heard weeping – tears of joy, of sadness, of aching voids that could no longer be filled. She had done what she needed to do: see that every crewman was tended to. That Voyager’s logs be downloaded to the Federation database, every report from every department over a period of seven years be in the hands of admirals who would decipher, analyse, discard, disseminate, laud, admire, doubt, criticise.

 The voices were around her - loud voices, astringent calls, soft, coaxing voices that asked a child to accept a father never seen, that informed a husband of a child, now seven, that imparted to a daughter of a mother just died, that told of misery, of denigration, of acceptance, of joy, of loss. Later the voices sat in her head, crowding and overcrowding her spaces until she felt her head would burst. She tried to find the nearest tree where, in helpless rage, she could simply bang her forehead until she could no longer think.  

 It was not supposed to be like this.

 Homecoming meant Caesar entering the gates of Rome in triumph and relating his many exploits in Gaul. Homecoming meant Odysseus returning after twenty years and countless trials at sea to a waiting son and wife. Homecoming meant a prisoner, long transformed from his former wickedness, flying into the  arms of his overjoyed wife and children.

 Her mother was dead. Voices – again – that travelled from the centre of the mists told her of the pining of Gretchen Janeway until at last, too unbearably tired to hold on to life, she simply passed away. Homecoming meant a sister who remained hidden until her face emerged from the mists and the only words that held any power, any meaning, that stabbed too deeply for her to offer an explanation were "You killed my mother."  Just that. Phoebe had turned away from her before she could even open her mouth; before she could open her arms for a hug of joy; before she could say, "I'm sorry."

 Homecoming. No one to wait for her. No loved ones. Everyone of her crew had come home to something or with something. They had something to connect them to their past and their present and their future. She lay, like Odysseus, washed up on the shores, turned into an old, old woman who had nothing to look forward to.

 Nothing. An emptiness that heralded her future. A homecoming that offered no more than what Starfleet was prepared to give: new rank pips and an office.

 What then, Kathryn Janeway, of your first officer? 

The unknown voice seemed to drill into her head, creating a channel through which her lifeblood coursed, seeking exits that could only be attained through the breaking of her skull. Was it her own voice that spoke those words? Why did it feel disembodied, as if it belonged to no one, or to everyone who knew her?

 What then of your first officer?

 The days turned inward, rushed into the chambers of all knowledge in her brain. There was no hiding place except in her head, and her head could deceive her with guileless ease - days before Voyager came through the hub, days before her future self appeared.

 She had wagered her life on a waiting period.

 Until we get home.

  _Home is thirty thousand light-years away._

 I can bear it. So can you.

  _I am a man, Kathryn. A man with needs._

 I can't give you what you need now.

  _That is a lie. I can see it in your eyes, in your face, in your hands, even. You need me and you want me. You love me._

 That may be so. But I am not a young and guileless woman who rushes headlong into a relationship that will make demands, ask more than what I will be able to give, and do so without considering the consequences.

  _We have been in this place seven years, lived side by side for seven years, fought one another, loved one another, looked out for one another, protected one another. That does not constitute rushing headlong into love, into thoughtless acts. You have the strength, the ability to handle any threat befalling this ship and its crew. You have proved that over and over. What consequences do you speak of that cannot be handled by you?_

 My message, I believe, has always been clear. I don't believe that I have given you any reason at any time to think of me more than as a friend, a valued colleague, as your superior.

  _What then, of New Earth?_

 We needed one another's warmth. Believe me when I tell you that all the reservations I have for pursuing something with you, which would require leaving all of me in the custody of your heart, is not the Federation, not the ship, not Starfleet.

  _I would have thought the Federation to be your first line of defence. Now I see that you are more cold-blooded than that which, in my estimation, acts as your father. You have led me on, hinted here and there that I might dare to hope. There is thus no point in asking whether Kathryn Janeway loves me._

 I love you.

  _Yes, as the friend, the valued colleague, as my superior officer, nothing more._

 Chakotay…

  _I am a man._

 She had walked away from him. It had been hard to walk away from her life. It had been hard to see the destruction her words wreaked in his eyes. It had been hard not to rush back to him and plead to be accepted or forgiven. It would have been harder had she not seen his eyes before the destruction.

 Didn't you know, Chakotay, that your words were just lip-service, that your hurt was centred in your manly ego? Couldn't you discern a difference between hurting of the heart and hurting of the head, the id, the ego? You loved me, but you loved not all of me. You loved me, but it was the love provoked by your extraordinary sense to protect. It was the love inspired by your inborn capacity to touch with healing, to soothe with gentle words which belied such a roughened exterior.

  _You say my love was selfish?_

 I cannot deny that you felt what you felt, what you are still feeling. But don't you see? Your love is tempered by your obligation to me. I should not be an obligation.

 She thought it had been arrogant to assume that she knew where his heart lay, arrogant to articulate that notion and convert it into words of wisdom of a condescending nature that he would be happier with someone else.

 You don't understand me, Chakotay.

  _I understand enough, more than you think._

 Then why do I still feel that the light, which I dare to wish into my soul, cannot even filter through a parsec of it? Why do I still have a sinking feeling of being deflated, unanswered in the depths of me? I want my soul touched…touched… I want that understood. No one understands… 

The part of me that can love and that can be loved, is only a part. I pen my thoughts in poetry, paint my agonies on canvas, listen with pure awe to music that rains from mountain ranges, from waterfalls, from wild geese skimming a glittering lake, from the clouds that sail away into the distance. Sometimes I dance… There are times the joy of it, the expression of it is so unbearable that I dream of one who could understand that drive in me. All expression that reaches beyond the sublime is art. Every line I write, every stroke of the brush, every note of elegance sounding from the keys, every movement of the body into forms and contours that elicit a sense of the sublime, is art. There is a part in me that burns to be understood. I've never felt that with you, Chakotay. Perhaps in that I am selfish, perhaps in that I may divest myself of any idea that sexual intimacy can compensate for all understanding. Men may think that, sometimes.

  _Your judgment of me is unfair. It is not right._

 I am the friend who will be by your side too, if you need me. Just like you promised to be by my side so long ago, I will be that for you. But Chakotay, our journey has ended and for me, whatever lies ahead, I face alone. We were thrown together by extraordinary circumstances which required extraordinary measures to survive together, and we have done that. You are my friend, but even as we part here, I tell you that you never really understood me, understood that I must walk alone.

 You will be happy, Chakotay. With her.

  _What do you mean?_

 What I said. I see the light go up in your eyes. You don't even know that your heart is reaching, away from me, where it should be.

  _I don't know what to say._

 Then don't. Rather explore the new, as yet untouched dimension I see in your eyes. They glow and speak of realms I can never tread or live, or exist in. That dimension, Chakotay, that desires your total understanding. I love you, yes, but what I feel should never betray you, or where your path leads you. It's written.

  _You love me, Kathryn Janeway._

 Yes.

  _But I cannot love you back._

 I know what you feel for me, but Kathryn Janeway should never become your obligation. Yes, we shared intimacies; yes, we loved, yes, there could be something lasting. But I have seen your eyes, seen that someone here on Voyager will have custody of your heart. Not me.

  _I am sorry._

 Don't be. Don't ever be sorry.

  ****

 What of Chakotay?

 That was what she saw through the haze in everyone's eyes. Her senior officers, her superiors who read the reports, the official logs which couldn't lie. They sifted through them and extrapolated the facts, distilled them into one personal reckoning in the life of the captain of Voyager: there was something between Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay.

 Did you, or did you not pursue a personal relationship with another officer on board a Federation vessel, Captain? Did you, or did you not fraternise with a member who was a subordinate, albeit your first officer? Did you, or did you not pursue a relationship with a prisoner, a Maquis whom you were to deliver to the Federation?

 What then, of Chakotay?

 Nothing of Chakotay, she responded, smiling her way through the cynical enquiries, the compassionate questions that were well meant. She smiled, remained a true Starfleet product that knew how to play the game of hearts and crosses.

 What you have read in the ship's logs and reports I cannot refute. We believed ourselves to be lost forever. Had it not been for the Borg, we would have taken three more decades before returning home. Admirals, a number of my crew have formed attachments. Dare you tell me that given the extraordinary circumstances of our journey home, the need to survive by seeking comfort and companionship should not be part of that survival?

  _Therefore, what attachments that were formed were born of survival's need?_

 You understand me wrong, as I think you very well know and understand that where the heart lingers, men and women will find a way to be together. What I have shared, as you indeed seem to have distilled from all the reports before you, was the need to be two things at once in a position of leadership. I would quote you the words of Periander of Corinth when he agonised over whether a king, a leader, could also be a man, a poet, an artist. Is it possible to bridge and merge what Starfleet declares to be two divides? To find a balance between prince and poet and provide for each in equal measure? In this case, to be captain and woman.

 

What I shared with another individual on Voyager was, I can assure you, discreet and private, not to be brought into disrepute or questioned by your team which can only glean second-hand knowledge of Voyager's trials and tribulations. On all other issues I stand before you, to be judged and judged fairly.

  _Commander Chakotay and the rest of the Maquis have been offered pardons, Captain Janeway._

 I am happy. Thank you, Admiral Nechayev, Admiral Hays, Admiral Gordon.. The Maquis were a valuable asset to Voyager. While my original mission had indeed been to deliver the Maquis into your hands, many things  changed, on Voyager, in the Delta Quadrant, and here, in the Federation, which cast a different light on their worth, their ideals, their struggle for freedom and justice. The nature of our mission assumed an entirely different objective which required its crew to battle all manner of adversity, to survive in a quadrant with mostly hostile worlds. We became a Voyager crew, with a common goal and that was to work together as one to reach home. It has been my greatest wish to see them all pardoned and freed.

  _Please do not go off-world, Captain Janeway. We may need to contact you again._

 Then you are not finished with me?

  _No, Captain Janeway. There are matters regarding some events and incidents which require your expert knowledge on whether further action should be pursued._

 In other words, a court martial. The last words were then, as now, in her thoughts, warring with all others to gain precedence and hoist itself as the primary, single most serious indictment against her.

   **

 No more questions about Chakotay, and her crew left, leaving their smiling captain behind to clean up after Voyager's return. She hadn't wanted them around and ordered them to go with their families, plan their futures, get on with their lives, mourn too, if they needed.

 A knock on her hotel room door. Tired feet shuffled to the door to open it.

 Chakotay. A welcome, reassuring sight. He stood hands behind his back.

 "Captain…"

 "Chakotay! I thought you had left for Dorvan V already."

 Chakotay's eyes bore into her, flitted over her features trying to find a chink, anything that bore traces of heartache. Instead, she graced him with a smile, remaining happy.

 "I must thank you again for performing the ceremony. We didn't want anyone else and we didn't want to leave until you had performed it."

 "It has been a pleasure, my friend. So, where is your wife?"

 They had been temporarily housed in a hotel, a huge concession subsidised by Starfleet for the entire crew. From there, most of the crew could go their way to their respective destinations and make plans. She opened her door further and he entered, though not taking more than three or four steps inside.

 "She has been in contact with her aunt in Sweden and we're to visit her first before leaving for Dorvan. No more cat suits for her, she's decided."

 "That's something new. I thought she loved it."

 "She maintains she's no longer on Voyager and would like to test the waters in clothing like slack suits. And, she's letting her hair down, literally."

 "Seven of Nine. Who would have thought she could relax about anything. She looks radiant, you know."

 "She is. We have a few plans, but first, Dorvan. She's to be our technical advisor there. We're hoping to have children…"

 Chakotay spoke with the ease of an old friend, the simple relief that he could still share many things with her. The lines of strain were gone from his face, strain she had seen too often during their years away from home. Even with her. Had he been too afraid of hurting her? She touched his arm.

 "You look happy, Chakotay."

 "I am. Thank you, for that too. Here…"

 She frowned. He had been standing with his hands behind his back and now she saw that he held a package.

 "What is this?" she asked, frowning.

 "Go on…open it. I think you will like it."

 She had already pulled the wrapping off while he spoke and gasped as she held the leather-bound book in her hands.

 " _Warrior Mine_   by Henry  F. Marchand! My favourite modern author! Chakotay, this is wonderful!"

 "I was hoping you'd like it. Besides, I know you love the physical book with pages that you turn. This was the last of the leather-bound copies. The man's sold out, can you believe it?"

 "Of course I believe it. I have his first two novels… Before we left for the Badlands."

 She flipped through the pages, smelled the leather, the paper, closed her eyes at the prospect of pure enjoyment in reading the book.

 "He never does book signings, I was told. Very elusive man."

 "I know! I tried to get him to sign his first novel - "

 " _Songs of a Wayfarer_?"

 "I didn't know you read him…" she said, a little reflectively.

 "It was before Voyager. Well, now you know... Pity, isn't it?"

 "That's okay. Thank you, Chakotay, for this very beautiful gift."

 "You're welcome, Kathryn," he said, smiling his dimpled smile. "Kathryn, I want to thank you again for marrying us. I - "

 He paused, the unspoken words hanging heavily between them. She understood the significance. She didn't want to be an obligation. He married Seven of Nine for love, and that was more than what anyone could say of many people who married. His eyes shone. He glowed, looking much more relaxed than she had ever seen him. Her heart thumped wildly for a few seconds, then settled into an even rhythm again.

 "Chakotay, it has been an honour to perform the ceremony for my best friend. I – "

 "Will you visit us on Dorvan?"

 "I'd love to come! See what progress had been made in the planet's reconstruction and rehabilitation. It's hard work, Chakotay, but you are up to it."

 "Kathryn…"

 "What is it, Chakotay?"

 His eyes had gone sombre for a second. She knew what he was thinking, and her refusal was already formed in her mind when he opened his mouth again.

 "You are to be court-martialled, you know that."

 She sighed, then forced herself to calm. The debriefings had left her exhausted; she didn't sleep well, hadn't slept well for six days. She was near breaking point.

 "I don't want you there, Chakotay."

 "A character witness – "

 "No. Thank you. You have been given a pardon. Be free. I trust that I will come through this, too."

 "I don't mean to sound like a prophet of doom here, Kathryn, but I've seen Nechayev's face. Seen the other admirals', too."

 "So first name basis with some of Starfleet's admirals isn't going to help me now. So what? I can defend myself."

 "Kathryn…please, let me be there, for you."

 She saw how determined he was, his eyes filled with great resolve. She relented, even felt a sense of relief.

 "I didn't want to impose, but I would be grateful if my best friend could be there. Thank you. I'm not looking forward to it, you know?"

 "I know," he sighed, reaching to give her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "But I'm also hopeful that you will be exonerated."

 "Your faith is greater than mine presently, so can I borrow some of it?"

 "Naturally."

 He kissed her briefly on the lips then turned quickly. His room was one level below hers and she heard the lift swish as he entered and vanished from her sight where she stood just outside her door in the carpeted passage.

 She turned and went in, closing her door behind her, then stood with her back against the door.

 "I may never be able to breathe without you…" she whispered, the words exiting painfully from her, her chest burning, ready to burst from seeing him go, looking so patently happy with his new wife.

 But she had to make him understand that her reticence lay within herself, not anyone else, not Starfleet. How had she missed the signals in the beginning? In recent months,  Annika Hansen's name had kept cropping up in their conversations. Nothing to do with her work, but the slow, if tentative exploration of letting her name fall from his tongue, getting used to its sound, the inflections, the velvety quality of uttering it.

 She had known, even before he knew, how much he was beginning to care for Annika, and she had known, by the end, just before Admiral Janeway informed her of Seven and her First Officer, that Chakotay loved Seven. He hadn't wanted to commit himself to the former Borg because he hadn't wanted to hurt his captain, his former love,  his confidant.

 Her peace had been made. She was able to walk away, her friendship with a great man still intact, still active, still alive. That alone gave her courage and lifted her spirits somewhat. She wanted to see Chakotay happy.

 And what of Kathryn Janeway?

 Kathryn sighed. She was alone. Her mother dead, Phoebe hating her for killing their mother. Another snippet of a subspace communication with her sister had left her gasping with the unjustness of Phoebe's words…

 "For seven years I never had peace, Kathryn. Our mother pined day after day for you, and she left me out in the cold, especially the few times you were able to write her. I heard nothing but Kathryn's name for seven years. I was mainly an afterthought, as if Mother remembered too late she had another daughter, right here, on her doorstep. I lost my mother long before you lost her. For that I can't forgive you…"

 Phoebe's words lashed her, striking like a wet strip of leather across her body.

 Deciding that her sister would one day come round and they could then talk, Kathryn moved away from the door and entered the bedroom, preparing to pack a few things for a two day stay at Indiana, the farm Phoebe hated so much.

 Only, the first night of her arrival at Indiana, Kathryn received official notification from Admiral Howe, the Judge Advocate General, that she was to be court-martialed.

 She had been expecting that call with dread.

 ****************

    


	2. COURT-MARTIAL

* * *

 

 

He never came.

 Chakotay had sent an urgent communiqué that he was unable to attend the hearings. He had been called away suddenly to Dorvan V on urgent business. He and Annika cut short their visit to her aunt in Sweden and left directly for his homeworld. Kathryn knew Chakotay had been deeply troubled by the sudden turn of events. Torn between duty to his homeworld and attending the hearings of his best friend, she wondered if Chakotay appreciated the irony of the situation. The tables were turned. He had to leave. It was his duty. Still, his abject apology seemed genuine.

 "I can't tell you how sorry I am…"

 "Don't worry about me, then, will you?" she told him. "I know that you wanted to be here. Whatever it is must be serious."

 "They haven't told me what it is, Kathryn, but yes, I have to go immediately. I'm so very sorry not to be there to support you."

 "Chakotay, a week from now, I will look back and say 'it's over'. Whatever happens during the next few days will then have been concluded and I suppose I proceed with my life from there, whether it's in a prison or as a free person. I can't duck out of this. I don't want to."

 "You have to defend your actions to them, Kathryn. Actions we all know were justified."

 "I don't know on what specific events they will focus, so in that respect I'm in the dark. I don't have time to run through seven years of decisions I made on Voyager."

 "I'm so sorry, Kathryn. I've requested from Admiral Paris that he keep me updated."

 "Thank you. I feel a little better now."

 But she didn't. Chakotay and Annika left for Dorvan. She was alone again.

 They packed the court like bloodhounds – men and women of Starfleet who wanted to see the legendary Captain Janeway answering for her actions on a vessel seventy thousand light-years away from home, in hostile surroundings, fighting for survival, with single-mindedness and great authority binding her crew and guiding them home. Did they want to see her squirm under scrutiny or were they just plain curious to see her or, more unflatteringly, see the woman who was jilted by her first officer?

 I am happy, can't you see that?

 The admirals stared her down as though she had committed every single Federation infraction possible in the Delta Quadrant. The Prime Directive was held up like the bible it was, thumped at every emphasized syllable during the proceedings. She imagined she couldn't hear them and watched the mouths open and close, the hands flailing, the bible punched, her iniquities heightened and laid bare.

 Admiral Owen McKenzie Paris was going to deliver his summation in her defence…

 She missed Chakotay like her very breath, missed his quiet strength, his protection. She missed his dimpled smile that would more often than not cheer her up. Chakotay was gone. So was every officer who had served under her on Voyager. They were never called to speak for her and she  wondered idly whether they would have allowed Chakotay to speak had he been present. She was distracted, distraught, on edge many times. Every moment was taken up by the voices of the admirals in her head, the piercing, silent conversations, the denials, the referrals, the confutation of allegations, the facts of other charges to which she had to accede and pit all her wit against five men and women who seemed to want to destroy her.

 She saw Mark, just a flitting image as he moved from his seat and left the room. During the debriefings she had met him in the square and even then he had been uncomfortable. His wife wasn't with him on that day, but she had seen a man with him, a man with a shock of white hair. If Mark meant for her to meet his companion, the way the stranger reacted made her think she had grown ten moles and hair on her upper lip. Mark had apologised, never said who the stranger was and then proceeded to feel responsible that he'd let her down.

 At the court-martial, his brief appearance made her wonder why he even bothered to be present.

 He looked more guilty than sympathetic. He had married someone else, hadn't he? Why this particular safety net had to feel guilty was beyond her. Men and women got on with their lives, sought new outlets, explored other dimensions and avenues and left their former lovers behind. He had left her behind. That was that. Whether she continued to languish in her despair or not, she was forced to accept the reality that he  had gotten on with his life, whatever the richness or lack of it was to him.

 When he rose, she had given a sigh, feeling momentarily dejected and rejected then pulled herself together and watched him leave. He was a  busy philosopher who mused over life's quirks and pondered with other philosophers how new worlds could be incorporated into the Federation with little fuss. She pictured them sitting on grassy green knolls with sheep grazing blissfully, unaware of any turmoil. While Mark Johnson  philosophised, the Federation had been engaged in two major wars in the last ten years.

 A modern Arcadia.

 Mark went. The man who had been with him and sat in a corner stayed a few minutes longer, though he too moved in the mists that had become the constant haze through which she walked. Despite his hair, he appeared to be only in his mid-forties. One more of the curious bunch who came to see her grilled by Starfleet.

 On one level she knew exactly what she was doing - a real world and its activities superimposed upon the far more foggy underbelly of movement. She walked like an automaton, responded intensively to all charges, but at yet another level, she was hardly aware that she was in fact right in  their faces. She hit back, clawed, challenged and counter-challenged.

 Her head wanted to burst. Once again she was searching for an elusive tree against which she could bang her head and let the collective pus ooze out of her. The thick, slimy substance into which all questions, demands, directives, accusations, challenges, counter-challenges and sentences congealed, filled her up and wouldn't leave, not even as wet, drenching, soul-refreshing tears that could seep from her eyes and burn rivers of pain and frustration down her cheeks.

 "Captain Janeway…" began the first salvo from Admiral Hays.

  _You destroyed the Caretaker's Array and locked an entire homeworld in darkness, a selfish act from which no one benefited, least of all Voyager and its crew._

 Was that how they viewed it?

 Whether we liked it or not, Admiral Hays, we became involved when under attack by the Kazon. The Ocampans were under serious threat. We protected them –

  _You mean you protected them, Captain Janeway._

 I stand alone. Yes, I sought to protect them by destroying the array.  The Prime Directive was not violated. We became involved. Ocampa could be saved –

  _It was the only way home for Voyager and her crew. It was a decision with far-reaching consequences. Voyager could have been back weeks later instead of seven years, or thirty years._

 We saved thousands of Ocampa. Their world would have been destroyed by the Kazon who were after a commodity we treat here so lightly: water. Yes, a homeworld or a race that had water controlled the balance of power.

  _Captain Janeway, you acted without consulting your senior officers, in a decision that affected your crew and stranded them in the Delta Quadrant for what would have been seventy five years.._

 As the commanding officer of a Starfleet vessel, I may make decisions for my crew in circumstances such as the destruction of the Caretaker's array warranted. It shifted the balance of power among the various Kazon sects and indeed in the neighbouring sectors of Ocampa.

  _We do not question the prudence of your decision, Captain, but are merely establishing the veracity of your convictions in making such a decision._

 I understand, Admiral Hays.

  _Thank you, Captain Janeway._

 Breathe deeply, Janeway, breathe deeply. The war is inside you; master your emotions and keep the oozing pus at bay.

  _Captain Janeway, a more serious allegation is one of murder…_

 She murdered someone?

  _In the case of a Voyager crew member called Tuvix_

 Was that how they viewed it?

  _Was it necessary to eliminate Tuvix in order to retrieve two crewmembers?_

 You have read my reports.

  _We have indeed, Captain Janeway. They tell of a sentient half Vulcan, half Talaxian biped created through a transporter accident._

 Yes. It was a necessary act through which Neelix, the Talaxian and Tuvok, my Chief of Security, could be restored.

  _Captain Janeway, two species merged, albeit through an accident, in a symbiotic genesis, creating an entirely unique being who called himself Tuvix. That constitutes a lifeform able to make decisions and become a functionary on your ship._

 How could she argue that?

It also meant that two members of my crew died in the process.

  _With respect, Captain Janeway, they did not die, but fused into one being._

 It had to be done. The crew missed their two colleagues and despite the contribution Tuvix made, making the decision to split him into my two missing officers was necessary.

  _Yet your reports indicate that you accepted Tuvix as a self-aware, fully functional and active, working member of the crew of your vessel, with the unique qualities of the Talaxian Neelix and the Vulcan Tuvok._

 I needed two valued crew, one who formed the backbone of my senior staff, without whom much of my office would have been compromised in later years.

  _Yet Tuvix pleaded for his life, Captain Janeway. You cannot refute that. Could you look him in the eyes and tell him he had to die?_

 <<I died myself having to end his existence. I had nightmares for months afterwards. You won't find that in the official logs.>>

  _A life not even the ship's sentient hologram wanted to take. He was bound by the Hippocratic oath. By what oath were you bound?_

 My position as the commanding officer and the authority vested in my rank to make such a decision, however unpalatable it was. When no one would do it, it was left to me.

  _Something you didn't have to do?_

 Admiral Hays, Nechayev… Both officers have had no recollection of having lived inside the person of Tuvix. The memories of Tuvix for the short period he existed were negated the moment I restored Neelix and Tuvok. It was knowing this that gave me the reason to do what I did. There was therefore no loss, such as mourning the death of a loved one.

 <<But I died. I mourned…>>

 It was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make, Admiral Nechayev.

  _Noted, Captain Janeway._

 Captain Janeway, do you recall that you made the following statement during the incident of the USS Equinox, _"I am going to hunt him down no matter how long it takes - no matter what the cost."_

Was that how they saw it?

_The second General Order of the Prime Directive states that –_

 I know what the Prime Directive states, Admiral Gordon. Captain Ransom killed lifeforms to ensure the survival of his crew and vessel in their endeavours to reach home. What he did was a violation of that directive.

  _And Captain Janeway set herself up as the judge and executioner of an officer who, while he violated a Prime Directive, only wanted to get his crew home, the same as Voyager and her commanding officer. You stated clearly that you would hunt him down no matter what the cost. What was the cost, Captain Janeway? That some of your crew were harmed, or even if it meant killing Ransom in the process? Doesn't that act alone constitute a violation of such a directive?_

 I crossed the line. You don't know of my months' long insomnia, so bad that my First Officer had to take over my shifts.

  _May I point you to General Order 30: The primary responsibility of the commander of any Starfleet vessel or installation is the welfare and safety of his crew, including any civilian members. No action may be taken that creates an unwarranted threat to the safety of those individuals under the officer's charge, except in the line of duty and when otherwise unavoidable._

 Captain Janeway, how did you interpret this rule when you hunted down Captain Ransom?

 Admiral Gordon, Captain Ransom abused this directive, twisting it to suit him. In his own words he said, _"In the event of imminent destruction a captain is authorised to preserve the lives of his crew by any justifiable means."_   By any justifiable means, gentlemen, which he used as justification in killing lifeforms for his own ends. I meant to stop him from continuing this evil practice and give those lifeforms the assurance that Voyager and her crew meant them no harm. I accept that I put my ship and crew at risk. I crossed the line, Admiral Gordon. It has not given me any peace in the years following.

Noted, Captain Janeway.

  _Do you know how many times you have placed Voyager and her crew at risk, therefore violating general order 30?_

 You do not say anything, Captain? Shall I tell you? Sixty three times. That is besides other orders violated by you.

 We were in a quadrant never before visited by any Federation vessel, Admiral Nechayev. Every world we passed, paused, visited or touched, presented to us the unknown. I did what I did in order that my crew would survive.

  _Therefore you were no better than Captain Ransom._

 I make no such claims.

  _Well, I can see how you would take your vessel, hunting the Kazon to save one child and then losing your ship to the enemy. Yes, I can see that. How do you interpret the words of Spock when he said "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, or the few"?_

 How many times hadn't she run after something or someone to save that person or child at the cost of great personal sacrifice and risk to her crew? Didn't the crew violate her own direct orders when they returned to New Earth to rescue Voyager's commanding officers? Didn't she lose Voyager after trying to rescue Chakotay's child by Seska, only to find that the baby was never Chakotay's? She would willingly have remained in the Void and closed the wormhole from inside after Voyager slipped through, taking a shuttle and making the two year journey out of the dark expanse. She'd almost killed Tom Paris. God, and Kashyk… Joe Carey didn't have to die. She had risked Voyager to retrieve Seven of Nine… Yes, she had risked her ship, the safety of her crew.

 Admiral Gordon, Spock sacrificed his life to save many others in circumstances that would have destroyed the USS Enterprise. Perhaps to his ordered mind, a quantitive unit against which he measured the quality of his life seemed more logical and therefore acceptable. He would die to save ten others. I don't believe he considered how valued his own life and work was, how important his contribution to Starfleet and the Federation. Therefore, he may have been ethically wrong in sacrificing his life.

 What about you, Captain Janeway?

 I would die if it meant saving just one member of my crew.

 Noted, Captain Janeway.

 Admiral Owen McKenzie Paris, in his summation for the defence:

 I doubt any of you can even begin to grasp the enormity of the task Captain Janeway had of bringing her crew home. You have all learnt that Voyager was not the only vessel shunted into the Delta Quadrant by the displacement wave. There is a defining difference between the objectives of Captain Janeway and Captain Ransom. While both needed their crews to survive against all known odds, Captain Kathryn Janeway didn't kill alien lifeforms and use them to steer her vessel home. She risked all in every situation they faced and every time, with unbelievable loyalty, her fearless crew distinguished themselves with honour and courage in the way they rallied with and around her to achieve their collective safety. She lost many crew and suffered for it, but never let it be said that Kathryn Janeway didn't once place herself out of harm's way to save her own skin. She has, time and time again, made sacrifices no other commanding officer in Starfleet has been called on to make.

 For seven long years, years in which we all thought Voyager and her crew were dead, her world was dark and unknown. But I say to you all: Captain Janeway lit up the Delta Quadrant for the good of the Federation. We reap the results of exploration which Captain Janeway and her valiant crew prepared for us. They were the true voyagers, the pioneers, the explorers who opened vast, unfamiliar regions so that we could gain a glimpse of a galaxy closed to us. In the process she lost crew, in the process she made innumerable sacrifices.

 Captain Janeway had no chain of command, no directives from Starfleet other than the original purpose of Voyager's journey into the Badlands. How could it be expected of her to chain herself to Federation Protocols when Voyager was so far away? Lost? Captain Janeway was the highest ranking Starfleet officer in the Delta Quadrant. Whatever decisions she made for her ship and her crew, including destroying the Caretaker's array was done with no higher authority to guide her in making those decisions.

 You have all studied the logs and reports. You can see for yourselves how many times Captain Janeway entered into the logs that the Federation's laws and the Prime Directives were the only laws that could guide them and keep them, and by upholding these laws, Captain Janeway's crew became an exemplary one.

 Judge her not by the decisions she made to keep her crew alive, but by the hundreds of selfless, heroic acts through which Captain Janeway upheld the law and distinguished herself as one of the finest officers in Starfleet.

 **** 

She could smile, accept the handshakes of Admiral Hays, Admiral Gordon, Admiral Nechayev, the toughest of them all during the trials.

  _…And all circumstances considered, we find Captain Janeway not guilty and exonerate her from all blame and charges levied against her…_

 The words flew about her head. Owen Paris turned to her, his eyes kind, yet fierce in their defence of her. She sagged gratefully against his giant chest when he pulled her close to congratulate her.

 "It's over, Kathryn. They tested you, don't you know? They put you through hell this week and now they will reward you by giving you a promotion you deserve."

 "Thank you, Admiral Paris."

 "You're welcome, Kathryn Janeway. If it hadn't been for you, I might never have seen my granddaughter growing up. Now I have that privilege. I owe you everything. You saved Tom."

 She stood away from him. Inside she was shivering. She needed to sleep; she needed to swim out on a shore with soft sand and lie there without ever having to think again.

 "Kathryn?"

 When he called her by her name, she stood away from him, disturbed by the concern in his voice.

 "I'll take up Starfleet's offer of a vacation before assuming my duties as Admiral Janeway, sir…"

 "No need to be formal with me, young lady. By the way, you handled yourself brilliantly, as I knew you would. But you do need a break. You're a little under the weather."

 It was a colossal understatement. She nodded, smiling brightly.

 "Don't worry about me, Admiral Paris. I want to get away, from the media, you understand?"

 "Completely. Just don't vanish, will you?"

 She raised her hand and gave a little chuckle.

 "Scouts honour. I promise to behave."

 "Where will you go?"

 "Now that, sir, is classified."

 She waited until he left before she dropped her guard, breathing deeply, feeling the constriction and sharp pain in her chest as she did so. She frowned, remembering she hadn't slept properly in five days, hadn't eaten anything except to drink large amounts of coffee. The voices came back, entire conversations that moved into position inside her brain, readying themselves for the triggers to start them off. Her hands trembled as they touched her cheeks, warm and flushed from total fatigue and stress.

  _I must get away from here…_

******************************

 

 


	3. SHE FLIES WITH HER OWN WINGS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "She flies with her own wings" [Alis volat propiis] is the motto of the state of Oregon, my main setting for this story.   
> The beaver is the state animal of Oregon.   
> The lark [western meadowlark] is Oregon's bird emblem.   
> These appear in the story.

* * *

Kathryn had refused counselling, which Starfleet Command had suggested before she took up her duty at Headquarters. She had a high regard for Counsellor Deanna Troi, the Betazoid counsellor of the Enterprise, but she had been under such intense scrutiny during the debriefings and the court-martial that she recoiled at the thought of baring her soul to anyone. She felt raw, exposed, isolated within the myriad of faceless faces that surrounded her. Even the thought of anyone touching her, however brief that touch, produced a sensation of pain, her skin flinching as if it were on fire.

 "Perhaps at another time," she told Deanna at the first and only session, not wishing to be ungrateful in turning down her aid completely. "Right now I feel I need to be alone, you understand?"

 Deanna had giving her a long, pensive look.

 "I understand," she had replied, patiently, her smile gentle. "The battle inside must rage until it is spent. I won't force you against your will, Captain Janeway. You need time."

 "Who knows, I may not need you after all."

 "You will really be the best judge of that, though I can tell you that there are some in certain quarters who think it essential for commanding officers to receive counselling after long missions into deep space."

 Of course she understood the mandatory bias of Starfleet Command. She wasn't going to get away with it, yet she knew instinctively that she couldn't regale Deanna with her exploits in the Delta Quadrant either. She would speak with Deanna when she felt more centred. She had given a grim smile. Then she wouldn't need a counsellor after all.

 She had fled to Indiana. In the sun room on the upper level of the farmhouse, she busied herself with painting. She was nowhere near as gifted as Phoebe, but it was an outlet at least, an exercise which wrung the deepest, most sacred, most unbearable emotions from her, and which she splashed with untrammelled ferocity upon the unresisting canvas. The first painting… Had she been drunk when she painted it? So completely out of it that she was never aware of a picture, distorted in its execution, taking shape before her?  She couldn't even remember sitting in front of the easel, much less handling the paintbrush and using long, uneven, angry strokes in dark  swatches that stained the canvas, giving it an impression of life and movement, distorted.

 "Like the raging of a storm…" she had murmured before she got up, scraping the stool until it fell over.

 She had hurried down the stairs and flown outside to breathe in the fresh air. About fifty metres from the house she stopped under the giant oak tree. Although Phoebe had left the house to her, choosing to live in Paris, Kathryn felt no joy or victory in owning it. She hadn't seen Phoebe since the debriefings. She wanted to ask about the dog, but Phoebe had been non-committal and the only person she could turn to was Mark, who had looked after Molly in the first place. Her first  communication with Mark had been strained. Molly had died, he told her, all her pups gone to new owners. She couldn't decide whether she should hate Mark for not keeping one of them.

 Some nights, she woke in a sweat from a nightmare in which hideous contortions of aliens and ships invaded her demented mind. She would pull on something warm and walk down towards the stream, following a trail all along the banks until the cold ate into her bones. Too worn out and too cold to walk further, she'd fling herself to the damp ground and lie there until her ragged breathing eased. By the time she made it back to the house, the first tepid rays of the sun were lighting up the cloudy sky.

 One morning, Tom Paris stopped by.

 "B'Elanna's doing great, Captain. We're leaving for Kronos tomorrow," he replied in answer to her question when she enquired about the new mother. "And Miral has won my parents over instantly. Especially my father," he added.

 "I’m happy for you, Tom, that you've reunited with your father."

 Tom's smile was tinged with a little sadness as he nodded. He had reconciled with his parents, Tom who had been such an angry, belligerent young man.

 Growing up, B'Elanna didn't have much of a relationship with Miral Torres, yet there they were, off to her mother's homeworld to show off the  granddaughter who resembled her. What did she have? No mother and Phoebe… Phoebe hated her.

 "I heard about Phoebe, " Tom's voice broke into her thoughts. "It's really not fair, is it?"

 "I don't blame her. We were unequal in our parents' affection, I guess. Being missing, presumed dead didn't help, either. Circumstances such as we've endured can cause rifts in families. Parents tend to concentrate on the one child who is always sick, always in need of their attention, their support. A lost son, lost daughter? Well, it's not difficult to see how my mother could have waited up. Phoebe always felt she was second best and that I received the bounty of my parents' love… My mother… I would so much have liked to see her again."

 Tom had stared long at her, his blue, piercing eyes dark with worry. Under Deanna Troi's gaze or even that of Tom's father, she would have caved in, but Tom looked concerned. They had shared their misery, their loneliness and perhaps that was why she didn't resent his intrusion.

 "I'm sorry that you never got to see her."

 "No more than I am," she told him. "I take comfort that I was not alone coming home to an empty nest. Magnus Rollins' wife died too, as well as Chell's only brother."

 "Captain, you're not looking well. Are you sure you're okay?"

 "Did your father send you, Tom?" she asked, smiling up at him.

 Tom laughed, looking sheepish.

 "My father worries about his brightest and best star in the firmament."

 "Tell him I'll be back soon, okay?"

 "Where are you going?"

 "Somewhere I can rest."

 "And that's not here, at Indiana."

 "Tom, have you seen the furrows to my front door? The media hounds are falling over themselves to get interviews with me. I…hate them…" she had added softly.

 "And Chakotay? I was under the impression he was staying for the court-martial…"

 "You're fishing for something, Tom?"

 "Well, I think everyone expected Voyager's first officer to support his captain by being present, at least. He – "

 "He's married, Tom."

 "And don't we all know that!"

 "What do you mean?"

 "Just that. B'Elanna thinks he's a stupid man in love."

 "Or a man stupidly in love?"

 "We all thought that you and Chakotay…" Tom looked away, then faced her again. "We always hoped he would fall for the captain."

 "He didn't. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

 After Tom had gone, several former members of her crew got in touch with her. She had been very patient in receiving them, but when they left, she collapsed on her bed at night, too exhausted to sleep. In the early hours of the morning she would fall into a restless slumber, her nightmares riddled with faces of her crew who had died, images of the Vidiians, Species 8472, being attacked by an angry Kes. Too many that were crowding her. When she woke up gasping, it was the surly faces of Admirals Nechayev and Gordon and Hays that remained engraved in the light before her.

 It felt as if her whole body still shook in the aftermath of seven years traveling in the Delta Quadrant, trying to find the quickest way home, battling demons, battling herself, battling to overcome the echoes of the extreme noises in her head. She tried to shake them off, but stopped short of drugging herself into oblivion, trying to remain awake as long as possible until she was too tired to keep her eyes open.

 But the sounds followed her into her sleeping moments where they kept her awake, unable to sleep for fear of dreaming of terrible figures come to haunt her. Indiana was quiet, lying silent in the wintry afternoons, and the screeching noise she heard was mostly in her head. Most times she saw Ransom in his last moments before he died and Tuvix as he looked at her the second the hypospray touched his neck. Pleading looks from Tuvix, like a dying doe with a tear rolling down its cheek. And always, they spoke to her through their eyes.

 During the day she rallied, played the Starfleet game of upbeat optimism, of proclaiming she was enjoying her rest. She had spent several minutes in a subspace communication with Chakotay, who had been glad that she had been exonerated.

 Chakotay had looked well-fed, healthy, well-loved. It was unfair, but she had wanted it that way. She had succeeded in deflecting all possible allegations away from her crew, had made sure that each and every one could leave without having to worry about their captain. They reacted much like Chakotay did initially, in that they couldn't rest until they were assured by her that they could move on without feeling guilty. None of them were at the court-martial, and that was the way she wanted it. She had closed communication with Chakotay after he extracted a promise from her again that she would visit them on Dorvan.

 Why did you have to leave so suddenly? she wanted to know, just a question from a friend to a friend.

 The way he tried to avoid her eyes made her realise that it may not have been something that serious after all. His tanned face turned dark red.

 "Annika, you must understand, Kathryn, is still harbouring thoughts that – that we…" he followed lamely, his words trailing at the end.

 Annika had something to do with his sudden departure from Earth? How on earth? Her fears were unfounded. Chakotay loved his Annika. Didn't she know that?

 "And that is why you left so quickly for Dorvan V?"

 Kathryn hadn't wanted to complain. She had no authority over him anymore. Had he been summoned by Starfleet Command to give evidence at the court-martial, it would perhaps have been a different matter. So she didn't want to ask, _"But what about a promise you made me, Chakotay? A promise that you would be there to give your moral support? They didn't give me a single moment of dignity. They made me a criminal before they made me a hero and you weren't so I could look at your face and know that someone in the courtroom other than Admiral Paris believed in me. You lived through those traumas with me; you would have understood better than anyone."_

 That was what she would have liked to tell him.

 "I am deeply sorry, Kathryn, that I wasn't there. But Annika wanted to leave instantly, before we even went to visit her aunt. I – "

 "Couldn't say no?"

 "I wish you knew how these things are," he had said.

 "What, that a man so in love with his wife can't say no?"

 Or that he couldn't challenge his wife and insist that his best friend needed him?

 But she couldn't hate Chakotay any more than she could hate Mark Johnson, who'd left the hearings looking guilty and didn't keep one of Molly's puppies for her.

 After all, Chakotay did say to her, "I am a man."

 Yes, a man whose first weakness after marriage had been exposed. He would dance to his wife's tunes. Chakotay was in love. He would do everything to keep Annika Hansen happy. May they live and love happily and peacefully on Dorvan.

 She had promised she'd visit them, just as soon as she had sorted out her life.

 One night she dreamed of her mother. She dreamed of the lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was a little girl. In the morning she woke and decided to visit her mother's grave.

 ******

 "What do you mean?" Chakotay asked Tom.

 "You left Kathryn to face her trials alone. You let her down."

 "Come on, Tom, you're making it sound worse than it is."

 Tom wanted to deck Chakotay right there. The man looked like a chicken suddenly, not the man he'd once admired. He had given Seven of Nine a cursory nod before turning his attention again to the former Maquis. Chakotay had a hard time paying attention while Seven of Nine was in his orbit. Looked like Seven's little lap dog, so sick in love he was. He had come to drag Chakotay back to Earth if need be, or to visit Kathryn just once. Dorvan V had waited seven years for him, it could wait seven weeks more. But Chakotay was hung up on his wife. Funny how they all thought that Kathryn Janeway would enhance the man in Chakotay, and here was Annika Hansen making him look… Tom drew a deep breath. He didn't want to fight, just set the matter straight.

 "You're a lousy supporter now that you're back on Dorvan. Forget that your life belongs to me. You're a coward!"

 "We're only just settling in here. I'm heading the reconstruction of Dorvan. I had to come home."

 Tom shook his head.

 "Let me tell you something, Chakotay, then you can tell me I'm out of my mind to come all the day to Dorvan to remind you of your duty. I went to visit her. Captain Janeway is pretty much near collapse. She's been left to face her trials alone. Her crew have dispersed. No one was called to speak on her behalf, no one was called to testify, not even Neelix and Tuvok who were at the centre of the Tuvix case.  She's unravelling emotionally, though you wouldn't notice it if you stood five metres away from her. She needed you there, you moronic love-sick dog. What happened to staying by her side no matter what?"

 "Tom, before you think I've let Kathryn down – "

 "Of course you let her down! Only, she probably smiled brightly for your benefit, told you to go home, do your duty and get on with your life with your wife, she's quite fine."

 "That's exactly what she said. We're still friends, Tom. I've been in contact with your father. I asked him to keep me updated on the proceedings of the trial."

 "Is that all?? Do you know what she went through at the court-martial? Every rule in the Federation handbook was broken or violated or spindled, mutilated and folded by her, if you were to believe Nechayev, Hays and Gordon. They bayed for her blood and they got it! Only, she never let on how they got to her because know what? Remember on Voyager when the Captain told us she was okay, and we believed her, but she wasn't okay? Just like that at the court-martial. She was damned near brilliant, Chakotay. Absolutely, totally, mind-blowingly brilliant. Only, that performance cost her. It was costing her from the moment you married…"

 "Tom, I'm sorry you feel that way. But Kathryn is strong. Very strong. She will rally."

 "God, you've served side by side with her for seven years and you still don't know Kathryn Janeway."

 "Hey!"

 "I'll take my imaginary hat and leave. Goodbye. Don't know why Kathryn Janeway would keep up a friendship with you…"

 "Give my best to Kathryn."

 "Do it yourself."

 **************** 

"Captain… Captain Janeway? My name is K'Lor of the Kekrean Media Centre. Please, could you grant me a few minutes of your time?"

 Kathryn stared at the stranger, his presence an intrusion, his mission an invasion. His face moved away, away from her, into the mists, into the debris of her silent battles. She tried to discern him, impel his face closer, define nose, eyes, mouth. Then, miraculously, her presence of mind restored to her a small aperture. She could see him clearly. She moved a step towards him and touched his arm lightly.

 "Please…I have given many interviews in the last two weeks. I cannot give you one now. But I shall remember your name, sir, when I return."

 K'Lor smiled, his Kekrean features softening as he realised she desired privacy.

 "My superiors will kill me, but I understand. Thank you, Captain Janeway. I shall remember your promise."

 When he left, she breathed a sigh of relief. Hadn't they been informed in a Federation-wide Starfleet communiqué that they had to leave her alone now?

 She kneeled on the soft green turf, stroking her mother's gravestone in jerky movements. Side by side, two headstones. Her father, her mother. She had missed her father most of her life and just when they could become real father and daughter, he died. Her mother… The headstone was cold, cold, cold… Leaves had fallen on it and the letters were momentarily concealed from view. Now the name stared up at her - stark Roman lettering chiselled in capitals which more than anything embedded the reality of the passing of Gretchen Janeway.

 Although she shivered slightly, Kathryn remained oblivious of the icy cold wind that had sprung up, her eyes following the charter that hungry fingers traced in the cold marble. Her lips moved but no sounds issued from them.

  _I sing to you, Mother, your lullaby_

_sleep now, my angel,_

_sleep where you may dream of the sun and the moon over Indiana;_

_Are you thinking of me now?_

_Wake up, Mother and see me here…_

_I'm here, here, here._

_Look at me, your lost daughter is home at last._

_Why didn't you wait for me, Mother?_

_I need you too, just as you needed me._

_This world is not mine…_

_I was great at the trials, did you hear me?_

_I killed Tuvix and Ransom_

_The Borg assimilated me…_

_I saved Voyager from the Devore…_

_I wrestled Species 8472…_

_Kes went away, Mother._

_Mark went away,_

_Chakotay went away…_

_Phoebe went away._

_Why didn't you wait?_

_I'm dead…_

_Sing to me,_

_Sing to me,_

_Sing to me…_

 Her mother's words of the old lullaby came back to her, striking deep in her heart, instantly recognisable. The melody clung to her, recalled through the mists of time, just for her…

  _"Kathryn klein, ging allein,_

_in die weite Welt hinein..._

_Stock und Hut steht ihr gut,_

_ist ganz wohlgemut..._

_aber Mutter weinet sehr,_

_sie hat keine Kathryn mehr..._

_Kathryn klein, ging allein_

_in die Welt hinein..."_

 

I was alone…alone…I am alone… Everyone left… Justin… Mark… Chakotay… Daddy… Mother…

 A bird flapped its wings in sudden distraction. Kathryn looked up at it, the haze of the first two weeks returning as she tried to discern the flight of the brightly coloured lark…

 Are you lost too, far from home?

 The pain in her chest intensified as she rose unsteadily to her feet. She felt hot, feverish, but ignored the sniffling and the odd cough she gave as she made her way to her small flitter on loan to her from Starfleet.

 Minutes after she initiated a start-up sequence, she was airborne. She was hardly aware of coordinates entered, or her destination. Where was she going? She had to get away. No one would miss her. Her apartment was clinical and empty, the farmhouse was filled with her mother's memories.

 Somewhere, somehow, she headed for the Pacific Northwest , following the long coastline. Her head was swimming as she stared at the pristine shoreline, preserved for posterity, the forests to her right that climbed and wound their way into the mountains. The rugged beauty of the landscape caught her momentarily as she touched down...somewhere.

 Several minutes later she was outside the roundabout and began to walk, walk, walk…

 She followed what she imagined were trails into the snow-capped mountains, the high peaks peeping over the tops of the magnificent Douglas firs that rose into the blue skies. Her chest hurt from the thin air as she kept trudging up, up, up towards where she knew she wanted to go, to touch the apex of the firs, touch the blue skies, touch the mountains.

 The song of a lark rose up again, and it was joined by other larks as they appeared to accompany her, nay, to carry her to the mountain tops.

 But Kathryn didn't hear the call of the birds. She didn't hear the sound of waterfalls, nor did she hear the sound of her own footfall just before she collapsed on the ground.

 She lay face down - still, still as only the dead could lie on a late afternoon with the setting sun creating long, long streaks of silver, gold and red-orange hues across the waters of the Pacific.

 

********************

 END CHAPTER THREE

 

 

 


	4. ETHAN

* * *

 

 

He felt claustrophobic. His skin crawled. He longed for the mountains and the lakes and the waterfalls and the ocean and the sandstone cliffs; he longed for Beaver's Lodge. He wanted to be surrounded by silence, that in its very stillness spawned the sounds of ocean waves or waterfalls or the distant call of birds that broke into his afternoon reverie. If he listened carefully, he could hear a beaver cleave the water of the nearby river.

 He wanted to get away from the throng that jostled him as he tried to pass them in order to move to a corner of the square he'd noticed was less crowded. They were everywhere – men, women, children, grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, friends. He thought he heard trumpets sound but that was mostly in his imagination, brought on by the sheer  magnitude of the occasion, the total surprise of Voyager's return, her crew the conquering heroes of the Delta Quadrant.

  _I am a living paradox, a creature of opposites - intrigued, driven by the need to know those around me yet profoundly disturbed by the presence of too many around me. I am agitated, fraught with their intensity to know me, to know too much of me…_

 Too many people. They swarmed the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters. They quacked about like busy ducks waddling with webbed feet along the pathways flanked by orderly flower beds and undulating lawns. Their beaks opened and closed incessantly in rapid clicking sounds. He wanted to laugh as he imagined seeing their movement without the accompaniment of sound. Like a pantomime that, even as tears fell or faces broke into happy smiles, was unable to dispel its comic aspect. Sound and movement  were indispensable elements in promoting harmony, creating order through it. He saw it as an essential characteristic in the driving force of life. Alone, it would collapse into caricature, making what was designed to be dramatic, comic or without dimension.

 He was here to meet Mark Johnson, reason enough to lure him here, because people interested him. He had no other business with them but to observe them. To discern through sense and sight what men and women were up to, what they were thinking, what they were intending, what passion drove them, what loss moved them, what achievements hallowed them. Shift a few of them into different positions and the rules would change -  a matter of sheer perspective. What he saw and construed, inferred, assumed, accurately attributed, the object of his observation might view entirely differently. Most of the time his appraisal, instinctive to the point that it made him uneasy, was correct.

 It was a dance of life on the stage of life and he was part of it. He was either a patient figurant standing somewhere within the action and observing silently, wordlessly, or he was a minor player, brought in primarily to set things in motion. He could be one of the principals who died, agonised, and with hands and eyes raised heavenwards sing dramatically in stirring, trembling melodies of his sorrow.

 Sometimes, he wished he was wrong in his assessment. Then he could return to Beaver's Lodge, sit on the deck, play the cello and forget all his woes.

 By the time he reached the other end of the square where he miraculously found an unoccupied bench, he  was giving a sigh of relief as he sat down. He heard laughter, heard whoops of joy, tears of misery, of mourning, of compassion, sympathy. Somehow, not a single person made an impression and perhaps that was his saving grace, for the moment he saw Mark Johnson approaching, he was reminded why he was at Headquarters.

 "If the sun were shining today, I'd say you stole it, Johnson."

 Mark had come to stand directly in front of him, blocking his view of the people, even the sliver of blue that peeked through the grey cloud bank.

 "It's not difficult to find you, Ethan Bellamy."

 "I attract people like bees to honey?" he asked, his hand brushing over his shock of white hair.

 "Your hair turned white ten years ago. Not easy to miss in a crowd."

 "You're overstating the obvious," he retorted a little tersely. "Now tell me why I rushed from my cabin to meet you. And here, now, of all places and occasions."

 Mark sat down next to him. An affable man in his late forties -  too good to be true, according to Wanda - Mark Johnson was to him more the cuddly pup women seemed to like and stroke. No doubt a deep thinker, but way too much the Arcadia type. His head was in the Federation clouds. Wanda was welcome to him. They were exactly suited. They never argued. Any arguments were conducted civilly and despatched with philosophical adroitness somewhere on the Arcadian hills.

 "Wanda is apprehensive about meeting Kathryn," Mark started, without preamble. "To tell you the truth, so am I."

 "But you are here to meet Kathryn Janeway. You called me here to give you support. You are afraid to meet her. Why the paradox? I don't see why you should be afraid. You did inform this Kathryn Janeway that you got married, didn't you?"

 "Three years ago."

 "When you informed her."

 "Yes."

 "And you told her you couldn't wait for her any longer."

 "No! We all thought the crew was dead, Bellamy."

 "But you couldn't wait."

 "I struggled letting go."

 "You realise that Kathryn Janeway may view your marriage to someone else - however much you're in love with Wanda, I shall grant you that - as a betrayal. In her circumstances, she was hoping for your constancy. You're just another in a long chain of things she has lost."

 "What is this? An inquisition?"

 "Why did you ask me here? To hold your hand?"

 Mark touched his shoulder. Ethan gritted his teeth as he forced himself not to flinch. He sighed with relief when Mark dropped his hand.

 "You're too cynical, but you are Wanda's relative. I was hoping you'd understand."

 "An inquisition is furthest from my mind. You moved on. So did Kathryn  Janeway…probably."

 "Look, it was very hard to move on, you understand? I didn't choose to fall in love again."

 "Makes me wonder."

 "What?"

 "Whether you really loved Kathryn Janeway."

 "That would diminish what we had."

 "Mark, by the way you fell for my cousin three times removed - I hardly actually knew her, mind you, until Admiral Paris brought her to me that time - I'd say you didn't…really love Kathryn Janeway."

 Mark would never explode in anger, Ethan thought as he looked at his cousin by marriage, three times removed. His innate affability made him slow to anger, if ever he succumbed to that emotion. Instead, Mark gave him a resigned smile.

 "Ethan, I don't care much for your cynicism. Perhaps I should meet Kathryn alone, after all…"

 "And I don't play nursemaid. You fell in love again, married Wanda, felt guilty even as we speak and now you're afraid of Kathryn Janeway, still feeling guilty. Deal with it. Why should you feel the way you do? She probably moved on herself, after you betrayed her so callously by falling for my distant cousin and marrying her and, on top of it, selling Kathryn's dog's puppies all over the Federation. You wrote her a heartless little note telling her you're married. The woman is lost in the Delta Quadrant and the only hope she has of keeping her head and keeping sane is her fiancé waiting for her at home. That alone kept her going for the first few years. Sure, I'd say you were very good at dealing her a blow to the heart."

 "Ethan, my friend – "

 "The lost puppies were merely a metaphor."

 "I did sell her pups…"

 He sighed. He could see how Mark had never understood the depths of the woman to whom he had been engaged. He didn't know Kathryn Janeway but the little he’d learnt from Mark and Wanda painted a picture of a woman whom they thought so strong she could never be blown over, even by a hurricane.

 It was a mistake men made, he thought with bitterness.

 "How would not loving Kathryn Janeway diminish what you had? Tell me."

 "What we had, was good. I can never undo that. I don't want to. But I don't think I could ever match her strength. I think she needed me as a backdrop, you know. Something that completed a picture. Sorry… I'm not making myself very clear… Kathryn is unbelievably strong. I know I'm repeating myself here. It's not easy to love Kathryn Janeway."

 Ethan had been looking away and turned suddenly at Mark's last words. He had never met Kathryn Janeway, yet the words hit him like a hammer between the eyes. What kind of person was this woman? A Starfleet captain for sure, who braved the odds to bring her ship and crew home, but who was the woman? In the eyes of Mark and Wanda Johnson, in the eyes of Starfleet, in the eyes of her crew,  a woman who didn't need anyone. 

 "But you have a great deal of respect for her."

 "Yes," Mark sighed. "I have the greatest respect for her. It's why…" He remained silent for a few seconds. "She never wrote back, you know, when it became possible for Voyager to communicate with the Alpha Quadrant and Starfleet Command. I've always wondered."

 "What is there to wonder? It's obvious that she saw to it that every member of her crew got to write their letters first, and anything she wrote would have been to her mother, if she ever wrote at all.

 "Still, I'm not sure how she'll receive me. I did betray her by not loving her enough, by not remaining loyal to her."

 "Johnson, you're surely not believing the claptrap I spewed a moment ago?"

 "But it's true, isn't it? It's why the guilt lingers…"

 "Only an idiot would reason like that. You don't know how she will receive you. It should provide quite a spectacle, I should imagine."

 "Well, talk of spectacle. I've just seen her, moving away from that small group over there. She's standing alone. I should go to her. Are you coming?"

 But Ethan had already seen an aperture in the crowd, seen the woman who was looking in their direction. Mark rose to his feet and walked towards Kathryn Janeway, not looking back again to see whether Ethan remained seated or followed him. It wasn't necessary for Mark to ascertain his intention for he had instinctively risen to his feet, feet that carried him forward a few paces, unbidden, uncharted.

 Could the crowd have parted deliberately so that he could get a good view of the woman slated to become an admiral? Could the crowd have made way, respectfully allowing him full view of the woman who had brought a starship and her crew home after seven years in the Delta Quadrant? It seemed to him that way, as if everyone moved in extremely slowed-down action, every single limb, footstep, shrug of the shoulder, turn of the head, even the smiles that formed hesitantly or instinctively on faces, hair that swung lazily as the head turned -  every motion appeared like a tiny incident in itself. A miniature of the greater picture in which three people were the primary movers.

 Ethan Bellamy didn't believe in providence, that state which gullible people swore, guided their lives. He had lost that belief ten years ago, when his hair had turned white, when his life went from heaven to hell, when all possible purpose that kept him alive on this Earth with hopes and dreams and grand passion and great expectations was taken from him.

 He had secluded himself in a cabin in the mountains and there pondered on his life. Tight, hard as rocks were the walls he erected, too strong a fortress to allow anyone entry. That was the way he liked it. He had become comfortable with his second nature.

 Now he saw Kathryn  Janeway, her stance alone conferring upon her the distinction of aloofness, isolation, endurance beyond anyone's imagination. It was clear to him, engraved with nails upon his consciousness, that a woman stood in a crowd looking stunningly, heart-wrenchingly fragile and alone.

 He had been right without ever having seen her in his life. Coming home meant coming to emptiness.

 She smiled, greeted, laughed, shook hands, spoke in a friendly manner. Her face, her bearing, her voice revealed nothing of what he saw and what he believed no one else saw.

 The woman was bleeding to death inside. He saw hands that perhaps gesticulated a fraction too high, too fast, too slow, too low… Nervous energy? Too busy playing a role?

 He walked to within five metres of her. Mark had already given her a hug, a movement in which his friend hesitated first before drawing her into his arms. Then he held her away. She stood, with hands on her hips, then the hands dropped again. It seemed she didn't know what purpose to assign to her hands without giving away anything.

 And then her eyes…

 They darted too nervously, he thought. Once, they connected with him, a fraction of a second, a moment in the universe of time and space in which he felt the connection.

  _I understand, Kathryn Janeway._

_I understand you, Kathryn Janeway._

 The moment was over, but whole conversations were conducted along the current of understanding which flashed between them. Her eyes had softened in that understanding, albeit only fleetingly. She continued conversing with Mark, but he remained standing rooted to the spot, too intrigued, too unwilling to move forward or even to move away.

 Kathryn Janeway was out of her element. She was bottling up a lifetime of loneliness, of privation. Her reserve served only to enhance the fact that she had given more than what she had received, and that she was never going to receive what she had given. There was no one with her in whom he could detect a certain attachment with the woman, something, anything, anyone to make the detached individual more human, more woman, more _home_ , to imbue her with the joy of coming home to something, or someone.

 There was no one with her.

 Ethan felt something in him break - a divine fissure appearing in the wall that he erected to keep all pain outside and to protect the despair and anguish and pain and bitterness and guilt of ten years that was inside.

 For the first time he felt the need to protect again.

 And for the first time, he understood why Mark Johnson had practically forced him out of his seclusion.

  _You clever, clever, brilliant philosopher, Mark Johnson. Only you knew why you brought me here._

  _And now, I  know._

 ***********

 After seeing Kathryn Janeway looking exposed and isolated, even if she never gave that impression to most people, Ethan's first instinct had been to flee home to Beaver's Lodge, sit on the deck and coax scales and arpeggios out of his beloved cello. The urge to write had started like a silent snake entering his body, slowly saturating his being with grand opening paragraphs, exposés, themes, the tentative introduction of characters, some major, others just on the periphery of his tales.

 That had begun since he'd seen her that day. He had been agonising over his craft, so inseparable from himself he sometimes wondered how he could breathe without writing another word or penning thoughts in a painful poem. While he welcomed his muses, the fighting, feisty, challenging alter beings whom he loved and hated at the same time, the resurging Melpomene had also filled him with disquiet. After Bellerophon, he had sunk into despair; only once Melpomene rescued her charge and given him a work to be read and enjoyed in the Federation outposts. Now, he longed again for Euterpe and Melpomene and he fretted about getting back to the quiet of the Oregon mountains.

 But he couldn't go. He had to see this being who intrigued him and filled him with a new disquiet, a slow, burning fire that singed the fringes of his conscious mind, making the need to see her again as urgent and as insistent as his desire to go home and create divine arpeggios or compose iambuses that free-fall into verse.

 As a former Starfleet Commander himself, he knew that the Admirals weren't going to leave Kathryn Janeway alone after the debriefings. That knowledge was underlined soon enough, leaving him as outraged as a few other of the Starfleet brass.

 "That's a damned shock, Johnson," he told Mark a few days later. "Starfleet court-martial the Federation's legendary captain? Why? She did everything in her power to bring the ship and her crew home."

 "Don't I know it! But you understand the debriefings… from there Starfleet may decide to take further action."

 "Yes, for sure. I always understood the debriefings as a necessary evil, a formality. But a court-martial? Seems they want her to stew first before they put a crown on her head."

 "That's my thought too. I'm attending as a member of the UFP's Pioneer Board. Whole new worlds were opened up by Voyager…"

 "You're not there as her friend, her former fiancé?"

 "You're not going to hang that on me again, Ethan. But I have told Kathryn I'll be there."

 "And some comfort that is, Johnson, when she knows your presence is self-serving…"

 "Dammit, man. You're not so innocent."

 "My advantage, Johnson, is that Captain Janeway doesn't know me. She won't see me any differently from the way she's going to see those jackass admirals. And frankly, I don't mind."

 And so he decided to remain and sit in on the hearings. He was drawn, not only to Kathryn Janeway herself, but to her plight. He sensed in her a complex being, far more complex than anyone he had known, a being whom very, very few could know, except perhaps her mother. He heard that Kathryn Janeway's mother had died a week before Voyager returned home. That must have hit her hard. A mother who waited seven years…

 He had sat in the courtroom, a few seats away from Mark Johnson, and watched the proceedings. He couldn't  rid himself of the image of Kathryn Janeway - aloof, reserved, isolated. Her face revealed nothing of the strain of seven years of hardship, or of the grilling Admirals Hays, Nechayev and Gordon gave her.  He hated Nechayev, cared nothing for Hays and didn't much like Gordon himself and these predators were let loose on a captain who stood alone and fought back with great tenacity.

 But he could see how every answer, every response delivered smartly, without hesitation, proudly at times, tore a layer away from her strength, her reserve. Very soon she was going to break.

 They showed her little mercy.

 It became unbearable. Mark got up, and later, he too rose from his seat, looking straight at Kathryn Janeway and for a second their eyes met. Yet, in his ordered, literary mind, he knew, sensed more than actually seeing, that Kathryn Janeway didn't really register his presence.

 It was a good thing too.

 When he came outside, he saw Mark Johnson standing near a tree and walked quickly to him. Mark looked far from composed.

 "I didn't know, Ethan, the extent to which they could hate her so."

 "They don't hate her, Johnson. They're pissed that she came back."

 "Came back? What do you mean?"

 "It would have been better for them, for their image as Federation warmongers, had Janeway not brought home a vessel that came limping back into the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager did what no one else could do: it found a way of dealing with the Borg once and for all. Nechayev, Hays and Gordon should have been court-martialed, not Kathryn Janeway. Instead, she came home and reminded them of their inadequacies. They're not going to like her for a long time."

 "Ethan, you're talking about the USS Bellerophon, aren't you?"

 He turned cold at Mark's words. He didn't want to be reminded again. The Bellerophon was history.

 History.

 "No, I'm not talking about the Bellerophon. We're talking about a woman in that courtroom."

 "But you hate Nechayev…"

 "Don't remind me."

 Mark saw he was going to get no more information that shed light on his own past. He sighed, realising they were talking about Kathryn Janeway.

 "Ethan, look, I'll do my best after the trial to be there for her. I think she will be exonerated. They're blowing off steam."

 "And a hell of a way to do it!"

 He was suddenly angry when he realised Mark Johnson was right. Still, it didn't lessen the Voyager captain's plight. He knew, like probably most in the courtroom, that she was holding her own in there. But it was the cumulative, debilitating loneliness he sensed about her that was ploughing through her reserve tanks and taking a whole lot of her with it.

 "She'll be on her own after the trial. Her crew has gone…a shame… I always wondered about her first officer. She seemed keen on him."

 "But he's gone. He isn't here by her side to offer solace and support."

 "He's a Native American from  Dorvan V, involved in the reconstruction of that planet."

 "But not enough constancy to remain by her side."

 "The man is married, I believe."

 "That's constancy for you."

 "The cynical Ethan Bellamy again."

 "I'm going home now. Thank you for letting me tag as your...your moral support."

 "Damn you, Ethan. You know that's not why I asked you to come."

 "And I should thank you again for knowing exactly why you asked me here in the first place."

 He saw the light dawning in Mark's eyes. A light of knowledge: his experiment had worked. Of course Mark just wanted him to see Kathryn. The rest was up to Ethan Bellamy.

 "I know?"

 "Bellerophon…remember?"

 Mark responded by nodding sombrely.

 And so he left for Beaver's Lodge, situated on the mountain slopes near the southern coast of Oregon, where he could gaze at the glimmering sea in the distance.

 ********************

 END CHAPTER 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. BEAVER'S LODGE

 

 

* * *

Beaver's Lodge rested in a small clearing surrounded by tall firs. The ground sloped so that the layout of the cabin was situated on three levels, with an L-shaped deck on the second level. He had chosen a remote corner of the Oregon South Coast in the old Curry County to settle, away from civilisation, away from the noise, away from the voices that still plagued him from time to time.

 The coast was  a unique blend of rugged mountains, tall Douglas firs that appeared to touch the sky if one happened to view them from the Pacific, and sheer sandstone cliffs that dropped vertically one hundred metres to where the ocean waves slammed against the rocks. Further inland, in the distance, snow-capped mountains, like jealous guardians, watched over still Deer Lake, gleaming in the moonlight. Even when he couldn't see the lake, it seemed to him that on clear nights, its reflection, or that of silent birds that skimmed its waters, could be seen against the firmament.

 It was perfect.

 Like the mountains standing sentry over the silent lake, his home was an idyll he had jealously guarded for years. Not even his dear cousin three times removed had been here. Put off by his instinctive unfriendliness when prompted to visit, Wanda had backed off and when she married Mark Johnson, had kept away from Beaver's Lodge. Any other human around here was an intrusion, an incongruity to his haven that contaminated the peace he had carved for himself. He maintained the lodge and its immediate surroundings himself and only tolerated the crews that arrived every three months to monitor the reserve's biodiversity and preserve the untamed beauty of Curry County.

 Occasionally, antelope would saunter almost right up to his cabin and look at him with unblemished curiosity, the sound of his cello attracting them no doubt. He was no Pied Piper but it was a joy to watch shy animals creep from their hiding places and dart about as soon as they had determined that there was no danger to them. If he kept completely still, he could hear the beavers splash about in the nearby stream that meandered through his property.

 He had grown accustomed to being alone. Alone, he could spend eons in his own mind while climbing mountains, scaling the steep cliffs, or sailing on the lake. There, in his mind, was another universe where he created, composed, became quiet, raged, became centred, conducted entire conversations. In his mind, he could reconstruct whole worlds, engineer entire scenarios of might-have-beens or future scenes or improvements on what had already happened. It never bothered him that, to the outside world, he might be viewed as an eccentric. He was at peace, but one which he forged from his own crucibles. Those crucibles were kept firmly in place. Once or twice, when the fires burned out of control in his head, he walked up Mount Coniston, an elevation of two thousand metres, and kept walking until the flames subsided. By the time he reached the top, he wondered how he'd made it there, so preoccupied had he been and only because  he breathed with great difficulty was he made aware of how thin the air was at that height. He'd rested only for an hour before making the trek down and back to his cabin. It was useful therapy. He was in his element and all he needed was his music and the written word, and his beautiful surroundings of trees, mountains, lake, coastal cliffs, rocky shores.

 But nothing could bring him greater centring than sitting on his deck, playing his cello. After a day of hard writing in which he battled with his characters to keep them in line, he sought escape in his music. Sometimes he let them loose on the story and it never ceased to amaze him how they behaved, given new sets of circumstances, new challenges, a different kind of driving force. Then he'd come to the deck and flex his fingers playing scales and arpeggios for a full half an hour before settling into a gentle sonata.

 The sun was setting, and in the distance, he could see the ocean, and the deep glow of evening creating its own aurora borealis as it fused with the blue of the skies, slowly, like an ever changing spectrum of colour that he caught in the strings of the cello.

 Fauré's Élégie sounded good today, he mused. He sat slightly hunched, his head bent low over the cello. Soft, yet mellow, the notes lifted from the instrument as the strings complied to the command of fingers and bow, breathing music into the quiet air. The notes rose elegantly in gentle crescendo before, one after the other yet connected, they slid effortlessly downwards again. The repeat, an urgent swell of two bars before returning to the opening chords… Second segment of imagined piano carrying the melody and his fingers prompting the strings to provide the accompaniment before taking over the melody. The sounds lifted and fell, became a caress as they hovered before the air absorbed them forever. Closing his eyes, he  allowed the music to fill his very depths.

 A sudden flash. A ship…

 He was back on the Bellerophon. Mel stood before him, nervously wringing her hands.

  _"Do you have to go, Ethan?"_

_"Honey, I need to get away. I'm officially off duty for a few days and I thought I could use it to get some work done on my novel. I'm taking a shuttle. I promise I'll be back as soon as possible. Thursday at  1900, that good enough for you?"_

_"Ethan, you're a Starfleet officer. You're due for promotion to Captain soon. Isn't that enough?"_

_"Mel, you must understand, please…"_

_"All I understand is that you would rather write and play your cello than spend time with us."_

_He had closed his eyes then, thought how their children loved that he tell them stories. Rourke was curious, and  asked many questions… Did he spend too little time with them? Mel thought so. But he had been working on something he knew was destined for greatness. He felt it in his bones._

_He kissed Mel, allowed his lips to linger on hers, tried to feel the passion that used to rage through his body whenever they touched. He sighed as he pulled away._

_"Do you still love me, Ethan?" she asked with her sad eyes._

_"Now what kind of question is that to ask?"_

_H_ _er blue eyes looked troubled. He was troubled. They had fallen out of love, although he still had a great affection for her. He didn't want to lose her. He needed her. Whatever he still felt for her…he wanted to give her as much of it as he could._

_"I love you, Mel."_

_But it seemed she doubted him. He sighed and pulled her in his arms again._

_"You…won't leave?" she asked tremulously._

_They had argued once. She couldn't understand his music, his writings, and never bothered to try. So he created his own universe that excluded her, excluded Rourke and excluded Piers._

_"We have two beautiful little boys, Mel. I will never leave you…"_

_"I love you…"_

 Mel had thrown herself against him, had clung convulsively to him. That was the last time he had ever heard Mel speak. He had left, and when he returned…

 With sudden rage the mood of the  Élégie changed, became disturbed, like a brief storm before it spent itself. His fingers struck the strings ferociously as the bow wrung the forceful tones from them. He threw his head back.

 "God, don't make me remember again…" he whispered.

 Did God answer? Ethan wondered as he opened his eyes and looked at the clear sky, so unusual for a wintry afternoon. Mel and Rourke and Piers and the Bellerophon moved away, returned to the hidden place in his mind. High against the sun, he saw something, not a bird he surmised quickly, more a small craft, a flitter or shuttle. It hovered against the sky, the sun behind it. The shuttle gleamed silvery, its passage erratic as if the pilot had lost control. Then he saw it dip towards earth, touching down somewhere in the distance, perhaps close to the shore, further to the south.

 He started playing again, this time an adagio from a Beethoven sonata. Once again,  music filled the air. The melody created a kaleidoscope of aches inside him, yet so beautiful that those aches, at one time unbearable, became carriers of peace. The war was over and music became its victor. The shuttle that earlier hovered against the sun was forgotten as he lost himself in the caressing tones of the adagio.

 Suddenly he shivered, as if something crawled up and down his spine, a feeling of unease that persisted, a familiar unease whenever intruders were on the vast estate. He continued playing, yet couldn't shake off the presence of another being somewhere near. Now, however, as he coaxed the strings of the cello, the music took on darker tones, nothing sinister, but unsettling enough for him to cease his concentration. His eyes became riveted to the area where the small craft had vanished. He stopped playing and the last of the notes drifted like echoes, moving further and further away until they were gone.

 But Ethan knew he wasn't going to rest until he at least investigated the intrusion. The disquiet increased as he moved to the back of the property to the small landing pad where he kept his own small shuttle. Once inside and seated, he initiated the start-up sequence, searching also for any signs of life. 

 A minute later, as he lifted off, skimming just over the treetops, he found one life sign. While the intruder must have touched down further south, close to the coast, the life sign indicated the individual was quite a distance away, in fact, near the lake. How far had this person walked in so short a time? He was still wondering about that when he saw something down on the ground, something that wasn't moving, but was definitely human, definitely still alive and, judging by the size and contours, a woman.

 He landed the shuttle as closely as possible to where she lay, sandwiched between two boulders. He virtually flew through the barely opened hatch to reach her. She could be dying. His heart racing, Ethan drew in a sharp breath as he turned her over. He recognised her instantly, even though her hair was matted to her face, a bluish tinge to her lips and cheeks. The air was thin and crisp up here, despite the clear skies. He touched her cold cheek. She tried to move her head, aware of his presence.

 He drew in a sharp breath.

 "Captain Janeway...?"

 ***************** 

 There was a warm glow in the room where he had laid her on the double bed and made her as comfortable as he could. Her feet had been bare and full of scratches when he found her and he had cleaned them, using the regenerator from his emergency med-kit. Now, because of the cold outside and the way she shivered uncontrollably, he had put a pair of his own socks on her to keep her feet warm. Since it hadn't rained the last few days, her clothes had been dry, even though the ground had been slightly damp. It would snow soon, he knew. Her hands lay limply on the covers, her hair now dry and smoothed away from her face.

 The bluish tinge was gone from her lips and cheeks and a healthy colour had crept into them. Her shivering had also subsided, for which  he was glad. Her head was turned to the side, facing him. Her face looked gaunt, the skin pulling over her cheekbones, her lips thin and without rouge. That day at Headquarters when he had seen her the first time, he had been struck by her beauty and now, with the colour back in her cheeks, he thought her beauty so delicate, so fey as if she could break any moment.

 And that was what worried him. An hour after he found Kathryn Janeway, she was still in a state of semi-consciousness and showing no signs of waking up. She suffered no concussion. She had not fallen and hit head her somewhere. Apart from the deep scratches to her feet and ankles, there were no other injuries. No internal injuries, no broken limbs, no abrasions on her arms and neck and face, no wounds, no blood that had oozed and congealed on her skin.

 On the outside, there was nothing wrong with her. She had simply lain down and closed her eyes.

 "Captain...open your eyes...please..."

 She must have heard his voice, because he could see there was an attempt, albeit a half-hearted, indifferent one, to comply. As if she wanted to open her eyes but the effort of doing so was simply too much, too exhausting, too painful and private. Where was she? he wondered as he sat on the chair next to her and touched the back of her hand gently. Into what world had she retreated and why? He grimaced. No need to ponder on the "why". Was he the only one who had observed that this woman was near breaking point? Kathryn tried to pull away from his touch and even that seemed too much to do. He wanted to believe that the movement he felt was in answer to his own encouragement, that she was responding to his voice.

 This was no mere total exhaustion, he thought. It was not the behaviour of the unconscious, though she seemed unconscious to him. His tricorder picked up neural activity, but none that could shed light on this unwillingness to move or...think. It was more than just lethargy; it was something unutterably deep. She seemed in a world too private, too far away to want to emerge from it.

 After what must have been endless minutes, her eyelids fluttered, a slow movement. Eyes stared right through him as her lids lifted.

 "Captain Janeway?" he said her name softly.

 Her lips moved this time, too. He had to lean in closer to hear her.

 "Let me die...please..."

 "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Captain. You must - "

 He stopped in mid-sentence as her eyes fell closed, a deep sigh escaping her as she retreated into her world again. It had become warmer in the room and he was glad. The evenings were cold on the Oregon south coast and all indications were that there would be snow by morning. His home was insulated, with a large centre fireplace in the living room. He had put her in the spare bedroom to the left of the living room while his own bedroom was the only room on the upper level of the cabin. They were on the second level where he had played his cello earlier on the deck.

 Ethan thought how lonely Kathryn Janeway had looked standing in a crowd that day he and Mark Johnson went to see her. He hadn't actually spoken with her; Mark had known that all that was needed was for him just to see Kathryn. The rest would follow. He had to concede that he had been heavily intrigued, drawn to this isolated, aloof woman whose friendliness, whose easy conversation with her crew, with family of her crew, admirals, and other dignitaries belied the silent demon that ravaged many in high office: aloneness. It was never what they desired. It just happened for most. He doubted seriously whether Admiral Alynna Nechayev had many friends. Captain Janeway had returned and every thing that connected her to home, to any attachment, had been lost, or taken away, or perhaps, through some mistaken belief that she could handle it, she had told her crew and friends who wanted to remain with that she was fine.

 He recognised the profile. He had himself gone through such a process and the only person who had come near to him afterwards without any agenda had been Wanda. Wanda who had met Mark Johnson, fallen in love with him and who wanted his opinion on how to break through Mark's continuing guilt at betraying the very woman who lay now so utterly defenceless before him. Later he had been Wanda's protector of sorts and been the father she had needed through her time of trouble. They were cousins three times removed, were close enough, but never so close that he felt he wanted to invite her to Beaver's Lodge.

 Beaver's Lodge was his sanctuary, his new heimat, a place where he felt cocooned.

 Now, Captain Kathryn Janeway, lately returned from her long journey in the Delta Quadrant - a hero if ever there was one - had entered his haven without looking like she wanted to get up ever again. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was already dark and he wondered if he should wait 'til morning to alert Starfleet.

 Then he remembered the media hounds. No way he could let the world know the lady was in his home, not sleeping, but almost catatonic. And not for the protection of his own privacy, but hers. He could never let them swoop down on Kathryn Janeway while she was in this state. She deserved dignity.

 Kathryn moaned and, suddenly alert that she might wake up, he leaned forward, touching her cheek gently.

 "What is it, Captain?"

 Her eyes remained closed, but her mouth seemed to struggle to formulate a word, much less a sentence.

 "Water..." it came from her, a rusty croak that was low and tired and without any strength.

 He rushed to the kitchen and returned seconds later with a glass of water. Realising that she couldn't hold the glass, he lifted her against him and held the glass to her parched lips. In what seemed like endless seconds, she took one sip, then a second, with water spilling from the glass. Her head lolled against him and he put the glass down, before pressing her gently back against the pillow. Her eyes never opened again, but she was aware of his presence. He was sure of that. He took a cloth and dabbed at her chin and neck where the water had dripped.

 He ruled out Mark and Wanda as persons he could call, and he had no idea where her sister was. According to Mark there was no love lost between the sisters, and he didn’t know whether Phoebe Janeway cared enough about Kathryn.

 And so he decided to call Admiral Owen Paris.

 *************** 

 It had been the best decision, Ethan decided as he stood on the deck, to contact Admiral Paris, whom he knew from his days as a commissioned officer. Earlier this evening he had called the admiral. It was late but Owen Paris hadn't gone to bed yet. He was still in uniform and appeared agitated, as if he had waited for the communication.

 "Commander Bellamy... Tell me you have news I want to hear."

 "Then I hope you wish to hear news of Captain Janeway?"

 "Yes! We lost contact with Captain Janeway after the hearings, when she left for her home in Indiana. She has refused all communication, understandably. The stress of the last two weeks has been extreme... My wife and I are very concerned..."

 "Then, Admiral Paris, I have news of Captain Janeway and, I'm afraid, it's not good news - "

 "You know where she is?"

 "I thought I'd contact you as the only person whom I could trust in the circumstances, sir. I found her on my property, in a state of collapse. I've been able to treat minor scratches, but I haven't been able to communicate with her. I can't wake her..."

 "What? Did she injure herself, a fall, an accident?"

 "Nothing like that, sir. No broken bones, no concussion, no internal injuries. She's just...gone, I guess."

 Then he heard a voice in the background, that of Mrs Paris, who was a doctor. He sighed with relief. He had come to the right place indeed. Their concern was genuine. Kathryn Janeway wasn't so alone after all. Not perfect, but at least two persons who cared whether she lived or died... Owen turned in the direction of his wife and a second later, her kindly face appeared on the screen.

 "Commander Bellamy...? I treated a Commander Bellamy just over ten years ago..."

 "Then you have the right person, Doctor. Though I must admit, I don't remember much of my stay in hospital."

 Elizabeth Paris nodded and he was glad she dropped the subject. The past was the past. No need to revisit. Anyway, Kathryn Janeway was the patient who needed her help.

 "Well, I understand Kathryn is with you. If you give us your coordinates, we'll be there as soon as possible."

 He complied, punching in the coordinates. Owen Paris gave a soft hiss.

 "That's not too far away. We'll be there in an hour."

 "Thank you, sir, doctor."

 Now, standing on his deck, Ethan remembered feeling immense relief that they had come  and that Doctor Paris had immediately begun to work on treating Kathryn Janeway.  From the way that Admiral Paris spoke in Kathryn Janeway's defence, he knew that he had made the right decision. Kathryn Janeway had reached breaking point. The cumulative pressure of years of command when there was no one above her to absorb some of that pressure, the constant application of duty and command which often led senior officers to put crew and duty before all else, the hardships, the betrayals, the losses, her mother's death - everything impacting all at once... Kathryn Janeway was a super woman, a super captain, but not super human.  

 Ethan heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Admiral Paris approaching. It was dead of night and the snow he expected had not fallen, although it was bitingly cold and he was rubbing his hands together. 

 "It was a good thing you called us, Commander Bellamy."

 "Admiral, I'm no longer in Starfleet - "

 "Well, then, forgive me, you're still one of the finest officers we've ever had."

 "Thank you. Captain Janeway...?"

 "My wife is still with her. We'll hear from her in a moment. She's almost finished. But Commander, I have a suggestion to make, since I fear Captain Janeway is nowhere near ready to take up her duties at Headquarters."

 He turned cold inside. He sensed what Owen Paris was going to suggest. They were in his space and it unsettled him. He had to get used to it, that was all. But right now, he knew he came across as cold.

 "Fire away, Admiral Paris."

 "You're very secluded up here in the mountains, with few people making their way here. I'd like to suggest Captain Janeway remain here until she has recovered sufficiently - "

 "Recovered sufficiently? What is wrong with her?" he asked, as if he didn't already have an idea.

 "I see Elizabeth has completed her examination..." Admiral Paris said softly, moving inside to the living area, quite close to the big centre fireplace where it was much warmer. Doctor Paris waited for them to join her.

 His heart sank when he saw the grave expression on Doctor Paris's face. He hadn't responded to her husband's suggestion yet and here she was, looking to support him in that idea.

 "What is wrong with Captain Janeway, Doctor Paris?" he asked.

 "Captain Janeway has suffered a complete nervous collapse, Commander Bellamy, caused by extreme and prolonged stress, unresolved grief, bereavement, loss of loved ones, loss. She's completely debilitated, to the point she wants to die…"

 He remembered Kathryn telling him to let her die. Had she lost so much of the will to fight what was happening to her? 

 "It's out of my field of expertise," Doctor Paris continued, "but I can tell you that the best course of treatment is for her to unwind slowly and peacefully, without too many intrusions, in quiet surroundings. She is aware of what is happening to her and knowing her, she will make attempts to assist in her own recovery. Right now, she is just plain incapable of doing so because her exhaustion is total. I'd like to suggest she remain here, in your care - "

 "I'm not equipped to - "

 "Commander," Admiral Paris cut in, "I'm aware of your history. While all facts remain confidential, I know you are exactly the right person to help Captain Janeway through her plight. Besides, there's no one else to help her. Her sister has absconded, it seems, and any distant relations are too distant to care. Here, she will heal. It's a form of treatment, therapy, if you will."

 "Therapy... She's not sick, for heaven's sake."

 "I know, Commander," Elizabeth said. "But she needs someone like you to help her. You're ideally suited and situated; you may not think so now, but I can assure you Kathryn is in good hands."

 "Starfleet is still not very high on your appreciation list," Admiral Paris added, a little ruefully, "but we commit ourselves to help as much as we can. This matter will also be held in the strictest confidence and privacy. No one but the three of us know she is here.." Admiral Paris looked at his wife with warm eyes. "Elizabeth?"

 "I brought along a full med-kit. I'll leave instructions for her medication, should she become too agitated. She hasn't opened her eyes yet, but she knows the admiral and I are here with her." Doctor Paris frowned, then smiled at him. "I don't think she knows you..."

 "I haven't said I'll look after her..." He knew he sounded lame. He was losing the battle with Starfleet's greatest admiral and his wife, a fine doctor at Starfleet Medical.

 "Please..." said Elizabeth Paris.

 "Admiral, Doctor Paris..." he began, drawing a deep breath before continuing. "I attended for one day during the court-martial. I was there also during the debriefings. I couldn't help but notice that Captain Janeway had no family to come back to. I don't think her sister has welcomed her and I believe her mother died just before Voyager's return. I was struck by that, Admiral. There was no one for her. And then you spoke in her defence. It means a lot, for her, and in my eyes, makes you the father and mother of this woman. I'll help as much as I can until she has recovered. I'm not sure what I've let myself into, but Captain Janeway will have her privacy and the time, the peace, the setting to heal."

 "Thank you, Commander. Captain Janeway has always been very dear to us. Anything you need, just let us know, will you?"

 "She needs clothing, though that can be replicated. But other things...?"

 "Her house in Indiana will be open for you. Anything you think she might need will be there..."

 When they heard a loud moan from the bedroom, all three rushed in to see what was happening.

 "Kathryn..."

 Her eyes were open this time, though Ethan could see that it must have taken great effort to do so. Probably the injection Doctor Paris had administered earlier. She was looking at Admiral Paris, then her eyes moved to Doctor Paris. When finally her eyes connected with his, there was a deadly pause, a long silence in which Kathryn Janeway just looked at him.

 "I...saw...you..."

 He gave a tight smile.

 "Captain Janeway,  I am Ethan Bellamy."

 ******************* 

 On their way back to their home in Southern California, Admiral Paris looked at his wife. His face was sombre.

 "What haven't you been telling me, Elizabeth?" he asked.

 "There is nothing physically wrong with her. But it's her state of mind. She spoke once of wanting to die, Owen. There is so much despair, so much loss of hope, it has changed her features almost."

 "Commander Bellamy will care for her."

 "I'm worried that she may never want to rise from that bed. Everything about her system seemed to have ceased to function, even her thinking. I think she's slid into an abyss."

 "Elizabeth, I know Kathryn. A part of her acknowledges what is happening to her and there is the hope that she will rally. How long it takes will depend on her alone. Don't worry so."

 "I can't help it, Owen. I have never seen her like that. Never. She looks so frail and weak."

 "Aye…" he sighed. He too, had never seen Kathryn like that. The court-martial had only served to underline her guilt more than what it sought for the truth, for answers.

 "After the Bellerophon was destroyed, Ethan's hair turned white…" Elizabeth said, looking surreptitiously at her husband.

 "Now where did that come from?"

 "Just that he looks very handsome indeed, with his shock of white hair, Mr Paris. Kathryn may be in a different kind of danger."

 "Nonsense. She is in love with Chakotay. More's the pity. Fool of a man went and married someone from right under Kathryn's nose. She's lost everything."

 "I hate Chakotay."

 "Women!"

 

****************************************

 

 END CHAPTER 5

 

 

 


	6. SONGS OF A WAYFARER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SONGS OF A WAYFARER  
> Songs of a Wayfarer is a cycle of four songs by composer GUSTAV MAHLER. It is the composer’s first mature work, and it also initiates a new genre — the orchestral song cycle — which Mahler would make his specialty.  
> Elements of this song cycle are present in his Symphony No. 1 - the music that is played in the episode "Counterpoint" where Kashyk is drawn to Mahler's music.

* * *

 

**While walking on the distant shore**

**a chorus never heard before**

**did sound the heavens and the earth**

**and in the darkness of the firth**

**his quest to find that music rare**

**in vain it was,  the lady fair-**

**\- elusive air did haunt him...**

 

**vanhunks**

 

 Music of Bach floated in the air. Quiet, background sounds that added to the atmosphere of peace and quiet, of restfulness.

 Kathryn leaned heavily against Ethan as he led her to the bathroom. While she could walk unaided, she had stumbled a few times; now, holding her fragile body against him, he wondered if he were doing the right thing. After ten days, and since Kathryn had been able to walk, he had become aware of her allure. It tugged at him, forcing him to acknowledge that she was not only Captain Janeway of Voyager who had suffered a nervous breakdown, but a woman, feminine, now that she was regaining some of her strength. Yesterday he had helped her wash her hair and it smelled good as he inhaled her nearness.

 "Don't come in," she said stiffly as he opened the bathroom door. She raised her face to him and he saw how embarrassed she looked. Embarrassed and stubborn at the same time. Beautiful and embarrassed and stubborn. A combination that stirred and challenged him.

 "Of course not. Call me if you need help, will you?"

 "I'll try not to," she said as she banged the door in his face.

 Ethan gave a sigh and walked over to the couch in front of the fireplace. A log fire kept the entire cabin warm. Kathryn had given him some bad moments over the last few days. After Admiral Paris and his wife left, he had sat down in a chair next to Kathryn's bed, and for a long time he just stared at her. She had not stirred after Doctor Paris had given her an injection and he had to resist the impulse to touch her cheek, so sunken but with at least some colour in it.

 It stirred something in him, something deep and dark and mysterious, something, a flower that, given a little bit of water, has begun to bloom slowly, agonisingly slowly, opening its petals with craven hesitance. It was so alien in him that even now, he still wondered what was happening. Nothing, supposedly, except that he had become intensely aware of her beauty and the tiny slivers that revealed her nature to him.

 The morning after that first night, the sky had turned grey as dawn suffused the cabin. He realised then that he hadn't slept in thirty six hours and had gone to bed, first making sure that Kathryn was alright. After brushing back her hair, he had gone to sleep for a few hours. Only that night had she stirred again. Weak blue-grey eyes had opened and stared at him.

 "Where am I?" she'd asked.

 "You’re in Oregon. My cabin…"

 "My shuttle – "

 "I collected it this afternoon. You landed it quite near the edge of the cliff, Captain Janeway."

 "Sorry."

 "No, don't be. You're not well, you know."

 "I can't seem to move…"

 "Doctor Paris was here. You've been under tremendous stress the last few weeks. Your body simply couldn't cope anymore."

 She'd tried to move her head again, to look the other way, but the movement caused her some discomfort and she closed her eyes.

 "I just walked…no direction, no purpose. I don't do that – "

 "This time you did, Captain Janeway. I found you unconscious on my property."

 "There's nothing for me here…" she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.  

 He'd wiped her cheek with a soft cloth.  "Maybe you have that wrong. You will discover it. Believe me."

"Who are you?"

 He thought that he had told her his name, but given her state of depression, it had slipped from her memory.

 "I am Ethan Bellamy."

 "Ethan… I like the name."

 "Thank you."

 Then she had promptly fallen asleep. She hadn't eaten or used the bathroom and when she woke about an hour later, he'd carried her to the bathroom. She protested weakly, but it was something he had to do. She needed to soak in a tub, needed to relieve herself, needed to freshen up. It had been a source of embarrassment for her because she was still too weak to walk. He had run a bath and stayed in the bathroom, nursing her over the first few tasks before eventually lifting her into the warm water. He hadn't been fazed by her nudity. It was a job he had to do and while she couldn't look him in the eyes, while she bitterly acknowledged her own weakness and inability to brush her teeth even, he acted with complete decorum.

 She had taken the soap that mercifully didn't slip through her fingers and begun her ablution.

 "I'll be okay," she said, still not looking at him.

 "Call me, will you? I've replicated some sleepwear and other clothing."

 It was an hour later that he heard her. He had begun to worry and was about to kick down the bathroom door when he heard her faint voice. A very large white bath towel in hand, he entered. Her eyes were closed. He could see she was again exhausted, probably just from the activity of washing herself.

 He practically rolled her in the towel and then carried her to the bedroom.

 "I'll be okay," she told him.

 He nodded. The soft baby blue satin pyjamas had been placed neatly at the foot of the bed, as well as a matching robe. When he hesitated to move, seeing her eyes droop even before she had dried herself, she murmured, a little sob escaping her, "Leave…please…"

 Sighing, he left the room, waiting almost half an hour before entering again.

 "I'm sorry about this," she said. "I haven't thanked you."

 "That's okay, Captain. I'm here to help you."

 "You saw me naked," she said with sudden, renewed strength.

 "I saw someone who needed help. Take it or leave it."

 There was a long silence in which she seemed to weigh his words.

 "I'll take it," she said on a sigh.

 For a moment she looked like she would cry, but he admired her spunk not to. Though, to be fair, it was probably something she needed to do. To have a good cry and get some of her trauma out of her system. It was early days and she was not anywhere near recovery.

 "Thank you. Call me Ethan."

 "You were on the Bellerophon…"

 "You checked the Federation database. Captain's level four clearance. So what else is new?"

 "I'm Kathryn," she replied, ignoring his words. "I promise you I've been better."

 "I have no doubt about that."

 She caressed the soft satin of the pyjama jacket. "You know my size."

 "If you must know, I had to recycle two pairs before I got the size right. Stupid me. I had to match it to the clothes you wore when I found you."

 "I saw you at Starfleet…"

 "You saw a lot of people at Starfleet, Kathryn," he said, her name rolling easily from his lips.

 "With that hair?"

 He sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

 "There's a history there, isn't there?" she persisted and he had wondered suddenly, unfairly, how ill she really was. Of course she was desperately ill, near dying too. But, even then, he had seen the fire of strength and stubbornness lurking in her eyes despite her terribly weakened state. 

 "We'll get you well. I promised Admiral and Mrs Paris. No one else knows you’re here. Get better, Kathryn Janeway," he said, changing the subject.

 But she had already closed her eyes again, drifting off naturally to sleep.

 Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, he had been forced to administer a sedative. The music that filled the cabin every day, from Chopin's Nocturnes to Bach's Concerto for double violins, to Beethoven's 7th was something of a stroke of genius. For himself, he just let the music play while he worked. Now, he discovered how it soothed Kathryn's battered soul. Most of the time she would just lie in bed with her eyes closed, listening to the music. He knew he had found a connection to the sick woman who couldn't lift her hand when he'd found her.

 Then, that day…

 He thought the most complete symphony ever written was Gustav Mahler's First Symphony. Consummate in its composition, Mahler had laboured over it, from the slow, dragging first movement to the stormy finale. Infusing elements of his earlier Song Cycle - the Songs of a  Wayfarer - each movement was a miniature poem within the larger work of the symphonic poem. Utterly autobiographical, Mahler's very soul, his spirit, his anguish over his doomed relationship with Johanna Richter was present in the work that spoke to him on so many levels. The third movement, funereal despite its playful tones hugging the _Frere Jacques_ melody, almost unrecognisable but yet, subtly, intrinsically there. Like a bolt of lightning, sharp, strident, yet melodious, the instruments - horns and trumpets enter the finale, making a strong and forceful evocation of the most divine music and unlike the song cycle, ending victoriously. Did Zeus himself preside over the proceedings of  Mahler's symphony, known as The Titan? Ethan never liked Mahler more than when he felt wretched himself. An old recording of the twentieth century was in his database - the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormondy conducting. He could listen to it for hours.

Kathryn had been lying awake after he had seen to her lunch. The first few times he had to feed her so weak she was, but by the fourth day she was able to help herself, even if she struggled stubbornly. Schubert's String Quintet, _Die Forelle_ , had just finished. He had gone back to his office just off the lounge on the opposite side of Kathryn's bedroom, to programme the next few selections. On a whim, he decided to go for something more forceful, more intense.

 And while the first notes, slow and heavy, were introducing the later upsurge of violins, horns, piccolos and flutes, he heard an anguished cry, so shrill that he rocked up and rushed to her. Kathryn's eyes were wide, her face stricken.

 "Kathryn! Good God, what is wrong?"

 Her body shuddered

 "No…no… not Mahler…please.."

 She was so distressed that her body shook, large wracking sobs already violating her emaciated frame. Momentary indecision kept him rooted as Kathryn's face showed all the horror of something terrible, a memory triggered by the Mahler. He had run back to his office and halted the entire selection. When he returned, Kathryn was trying to lift herself off the bed. He caught her just as she pitched forward.

 She wept. He had lost track of how long he held her. His shirt front was soaked and he had given her his handkerchief to blow her nose, which she had done often during the bout of sobbing and crying. When he pressed her carefully back against the pillows, her face looked ravaged, haggard - a far, far cry from the captain who had defended herself with absolute self-possession during the court-martial.

 He sat back in his chair but held her hand, rubbing the back of it gently. Her hair looked mussed and with his free hand he tucked her hair behind her ears.

 "I'm sorry, Kathryn. I didn't know. Mahler obviously upsets you."

 "He played Mahler. On Voyager…"

 "Explain."

 "No. It's alright. Don't worry  - "

 "Kathryn, look, you're distraught. Tell me at least so that I know what not to play next time."

 "Said too much already."

 "You haven't said a thing. I'm not going anywhere and if you're to recover, maybe you should revisit that part of the past you don't like."

 "Are you my preacher?"

 That was when he felt like throttling her. Of course she was right. Why had he been so high-handed, telling her what to do when he found himself incapable of doing the same thing? But, he had been angry at her retort.

 "Kathryn, I found you unconscious and so weak you couldn't open your eyes for at least two days. Your body - a machine, if you don't mind, didn't only malfunction, it ceased some of its primary functions. You would have been dead lying there another night in the bitter cold. You had absolutely no strength to lift your head, or to move a finger, or move your eyelids. If I hadn't seen your shuttle in my space, I might never have gone to investigate, looking for life signs. I carried you into my bathroom and cleaned you, for God's sake, you were that helpless. Like a newborn baby. Now you're telling me I shouldn't preach to you?"

 He had been angry and sorry that he spoke like that to her. No one liked to be reminded of what others had done for them in their times of need. But he couldn't help it. Kathryn's reaction, after her stormy bout of crying, had just rubbed him the wrong way.

 "Fine," she said at length. "Mahler… It's my favourite symphony, but after the Devore…"

 "Devore?"

 "Alien race of soldiers who hated telepaths. We hid some of them on Voyager to take them to a place of safety. The...Devore came…twice, thrice, stripped my ship, took my ship, left me with almost nothing. They searched, mutilated, did everything to get what they wanted…"

 Kathryn had closed her eyes again. A memory he knew that was wrenching hard.

 "Kashyk was their leader… Inspector Kashyk."

 "What did he do…?"

 Her eyes flew open. He thought absently how she had been able to move her eyelids with ease after almost four days. The fire of hate burned in her eyes in those moments.

 "All the time, he played my Mahler. I couldn't wake without hearing that music. Everywhere I walked, sat, convened, slept... After that, I hated the music. I remembered too much. Hated him, hated Voyager, hated…Chakotay…"

 "They don't know what you suffered, Kathryn Janeway…and there was no one with whom you could share your pain, not even Chakotay. Shame does that to a person. You thought Chakotay would pity you. You could deal with his hate, but not his pity..."

 All movement ceased as Kathryn stared straight at him, her eyes stricken again.

 "You…understand…?"  
 

She had tried to lift herself to a sitting position and when he assisted her, she fell against him, holding him for a long time. He thought she had fallen asleep, but when she stirred finally, it was to lie back against the pillows.

 "You understand," she said again with a kind of wonder in her eyes.

 He had given a sigh, then on an impulse, leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead.

 "I understand, Kathryn."

 "After that, it was hard to open up, harder than it had ever been. I couldn't think of that music and not remember a time when my crew wasn't mine, my ship wasn't mine, my body wasn't mine."

 "But you love Chakotay."

 He had said it as a statement, a hard to admit statement, harder because he suddenly wanted to keep Kathryn away from every man who wanted her, to protect her, to shield her from the wind, the rain, the snow, the tears, the sorrow, or, at best, to be there with her and for her. It was a gut-wrenching painful admission. He suddenly hated the Native American whom he had seen only in passing during the debriefing period. But questions had been asked, assumptions made, tongues wagged and some of the wagging had lapped at him.

_"He married Seven of Nine, can you believe that?"_

_"Weren't Chakotay and Janeway lovers once?"_

_"That was way back, on New Earth."_

_"She's still in love with him."_

_"But why did he marry Seven of Nine? He doesn't love Seven half as much as he loves Captain Janeway…"_

"Yes… Yes," Kathryn replied forlornly, "I love him…"

 He hadn't failed to notice how Kathryn spoke of her love in the present tense. And why not? Could she stop loving a man she'd loved for perhaps seven years in just a moment? Inspector Kashyk had imprisoned her body while she loved her first officer. And this, just one event in an entire range of things that happened and which brought back painful memories.

 "So, no more Mahler, huh?" he said, in an attempt to lighten her mood.

 And then Kathryn had raised her hand and her palm had rested against his cheek. Strange, strange, surreal wandering in the forests, over undulating landscape, his spirit sailing over the moonlit lake which lay protected by the surrounding mountains. His eyes closed of their own volition. What power, what strength he had, he used to place his own hand over hers and place it gently back against her bosom.

 "One day, maybe, Ethan."

 And her eyes had gone dark with remembrance.

 ******** 

 He felt a light tug at his ear and was shocked out of his reverie. He never even saw her and these days, so attuned to her, even her smell, he was always acutely aware of her presence. Kathryn stood before him, looking warm and snug in her sleepwear and gown; she was smiling and it transformed her features instantly. She had walked unaided to where he was sitting;  the close to an hour she'd spent in the tub must have relaxed her more than he expected. Her face looked scrubbed, her hair wet and combed back.

 "You're dreaming, Bellamy."

 "I was thinking of you," he retorted, sounding uncommonly sharp.

 "Not nice thoughts, judging by the way you pulled your face just now."

 "How long have you been watching me?"

 He took her hand and pulled her down to sit next to him. Her hair was already beginning to dry naturally and when he glanced sideways at her, he felt the tug again somewhere in his chest.

 "Long enough."

 With that he had to be satisfied. They were quiet a few moments.

 "I feel strong now," she said, breaking the silence.

 How did she know what he was thinking?

 Muted were the notes of Debussy's Reverie. He loved Debussy this time of the evening. It had rained the last three days and the cello stood in the corner in the living room. He didn't know if Kathryn had ever heard him play since she had been so totally out of it, too ill to take notice of things around her, too ill to object when he had to take her to the bathroom to help her and wash her, too ill... And since her appearance in his home, he hadn't played much and those times he did, Kathryn had been sleeping. The haunting notes of the reverie were the balm he always welcomed. It tempered his runaway thoughts, thoughts that Kathryn would speak words precisely as she did now.

 "Kathryn, I think you need a few more days. Maybe even two or three weeks." 

  _"Commander Bellamy," Admiral Paris had ordered three days ago, "keep Kathryn there as long as you can..."_

 "Three weeks?"

 He wanted to keep her there anyway, hold her as long as he legally could. If she wanted to go, he couldn't stop her. He was convinced that a longer period would leave her re-energized and her broken spirit would be healed; she would then have recovered enough to resume her duties at Starfleet. But in the evenings especially, she had been dour, unresponsive, locked away in a world of her own. He worried then that she was regressing to that state she'd been in on the first day. The day of the Mahler symphony he had given her a sedative and she had lain there afterwards and quietly drifted off to sleep. When he wanted to release the hand that clung to his, she didn't want to let go and he stayed like that until she was deeply asleep.

 He felt suddenly selfish and wondered how he could experience such a dichotomy of emotions.

 "That way I can have you all to myself," he quipped.

 "I'd be a hedonist then."

 "Admiral Janeway, you are under orders to be a hedonist."

 "According to the gospel of Ethan Bellamy?"

 "Admiral Paris."

 "Of course. How could I forget?"

 "Well, then, enjoy your recovery. You’re looking much better than last night."

 "I've known you a scrappy ten days and I can tell you're lying, Bellamy."

 "Okay," he said, chuckling, "since that first day. You looked like death."

 "Thank you very much."

 "You asked."

 "Fair enough. Your eyes are green like pines," she said, a complete about turn of their conversation.

 "I didn't have a choice. My mother gave them to me."

 "That's very funny, Ethan. But seriously, I feel stronger now."

 "Kathryn...please, what shall I tell Admiral Paris and his wife?"

 "That I can leave your cabin and go home. I haven't been - "

 "I know," he cut in. "Listen to me, will you? You need time, more time than you care to admit. Give it to yourself," he pleaded.

 She studied him long. Strange that he felt no discomfiture under that stare. Then she nodded and stood up, for the first time making a tour of the room, a lot steadier now than before. Other times when he'd brought her to sit in front of the fireplace, she had been uncommunicative, unresponsive, lacking motivation to move, staring into the fire with eyes that were glazed. He felt safe then. His own bedroom, the only room on the upper level, was safe from her. The rest of the house, except the bathroom, had been safe from her. Now she was embarking on a different journey of discovery and he dreaded the next moment.

 He held his breath. She knew the cello stood in the corner, just in front of the French door that opened on the deck. But a small alcove that contained a ceiling to floor shelf remained hidden from view from Kathryn's bedroom end.

 She was a Starfleet captain. Curiosity was built-in. He released his breath, then drew in deeply again. It was going to be inevitable. Kathryn Janeway, hardly ten days in his safe haven, the domain he jealously guarded against any kind of intrusion, was chipping away at his defences, the impenetrable wall that kept anyone out who dared to come too close.

 Kathryn was coming too close. He wanted to take her home to Indiana and he wanted to keep her here. If she stayed, he was in danger. If she left, he was also in danger.

 "Ethan..."

 He didn't look around, just knowing that she was standing in front of the bookshelf. She was probably holding a book in her dainty little hands.

 "Yes," he sighed.

 "You have books - replicas of twentieth century publications and editions."

 "And?"

 "You’re a reader."

 "I'm a collector."

 "No, a reader. These books are well-thumbed."

 He sighed. If she cast her eyes a little higher, just above her own height, she would find the other books. He joined her, standing just behind her so that she had to turn to look up at him.

 "What can I say?" he retorted. "I always liked _War and Peace_."

 "And a few other well-thumbed books here… _Anna Karenina_ … _Man in the Iron Mask_ … _Wuthering Heights…Jane Eyre…Martin Chuzzlewit…"_

 "You've discovered my darkest - "

 "Ethan!"

 He held his breath. Kathryn put _War and Peace_ back and now stood holding another novel in her hand. He had deliberately placed some books out of reach of too short women like Kathryn Janeway. He didn't imagine the sharp intake of breath coming from her.

  _"Songs of a Wayfarer_ by Henry F. Marchand!  I read this the first time about nine years ago. I had a copy on Voyager. It's one of the great literary works of our century! A man who journeys far in search of the intangible. On the one level, a man loves a woman who destroys him by leaving him, and the underlying theme of the artist not being understood, always searching for that which… Oh, here's another by Henry F. Marchand I read. Just before I left for the Badlands - _A Thousand Voices!"_

The smile left Kathryn's face when he didn't respond. Instead, he turned and went back to sit on the couch, staring out the French window, seeing and not seeing the trees, a whisper of the ocean in the distance. The noise in his head had returned and it sounded like the heave of the ocean waves during a storm. A thousand voices that cried in pain; a maelstrom of unceasing lament and cries of sorrow that were never-ending. Once upon a time he could blot them out, radically excise a part of his brain that couldn't stop conjuring up the images or recreating the incessant noise.

 He sank his head in his hands. Kathryn was forgotten for the moment, and only _Songs of a Wayfarer_ and _A thousand Voices_ and _Come the Darkness_ stood like sentries in his mind. Great works? Why now? He had been fine until she came along. He hadn't wanted her here, in his home , and now, achingly, stumblingly she had walked into his heart. He felt the old sense of loss upon him again, like he had ten years ago. A searing loss that left a vacuum for years with only his passion, his art, his drive that kept him alive after that. Kathryn forgotten? How could that be when her very presence, the way her hand had caressed the soft leather of the book triggered the past and opened up old wounds?

 Had she been destined to arrive unannounced on his property? Was this providence, continued?

 Henry F. Marchand…

 He wanted to remain selfishly, obsessively incognito. It wasn't chance or a quirky self-congratulatory ego that made him take a _nom de plume_ but the sheer necessity of becoming someone else. He needed the alternate identity; that  way it was easier to imagine that Ethan Bellamy had never experienced those things, even to think that Ethan Bellamy had never existed outside of his own skin.

 He was a writer. He played the cello well, but his heart and mind and soul went into the written word. It was as necessary as his breathing and it was the only way in which he could sustain himself. After _Wolf 359_ , when he thought he'd never be human again, his brain and his heart had synchronised and challenged his soul to find expression in his writing. Those first months, he had been a man possessed of a driving, urgent need to quell the raging fires in him through words and imagery. While _Songs of a Wayfarer_ and indeed, all his subsequent works were purely fictional, every syllable breathed of him.

 Now Kathryn, holding the book in her hand, had unwittingly found his vulnerability.

 A hand touched his shoulder. Butterfly light it rested there, like a salve that eased the roaring pain inside.  

 Kathryn knew.

 He felt her sit down and sidle closer to him and this time she took his hand in hers, calmness and warmth in her touch.

 There was a long silence.

 " _You_ are Henry F. Marchand," she stated softly.

 He could only nod in affirmation, not looking at her but seeing the trees outside through a haze, a cloud of mist that moved, lifted, darkened. He knew, without ever thinking about it or giving it careful consideration, that it was pointless to ask "How did you know?" for Kathryn's next words were an answer to his unspoken question.

 "I've known you ten days, Ethan Bellamy, ten days in which I was incapable at times of thinking, of lifting my hand, or turning my face to see the man who became my saviour. But I've come to know something of the man who never left my side during my darkest moments. Believe me when I tell you this: when my world was as black as night, the texture of the darkness as thick as ten bulkheads melted together, when touching that darkness brought with it my own unbearable traumas and caused me to sink deeper into that murky abyss, I sensed you there  with me, all the time. Don't think I never heard a word of  _Warrior Mine_ you read to me while I lay sleeping. Your voice pulled me back. That man is in every line, every sentence, every paragraph and chapter in the two novels I read. I have _Warrior Mine_ at home in Indiana. Chakotay gave it to me as a gift two weeks ago. And Mark...I don't think Mark knows who you are."

 It was the longest Kathryn had spoken since she woke up from her abyss. She was breathless.

 He looked up finally, gazed into her eyes. Eyes that were open, eyes that he could trust.

 "No one knows," he said.

 "And no one will know."

 "Thank you."

 There was another pause. Kathryn's hand rested on his.

 "Ethan, will you tell me what happened on the Bellerophon?"

 "The Bellerophon... What do you know?"

 "Only that the Bellerophon's first officer had been severed from the Borg Collective and his human DNA restored."

 He smiled, remembering her own words, but also remembering how those words had sounded like a vow.

 "Perhaps one day, Kathryn, I shall tell you…"

 ******************* 

 END CHAPTER 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MYTHOLOGY: Bellerophon was the son of Glaucus (king of Corinth) and Eurymede, and grandson of Sisyphus. He rode Pegasus, slew the monster Chimaera, and defeated the Amazons in battle.
> 
> HISTORICAL: HMS Bellerophon was launched in 1786 on the River Medway near Chatham. She had been designed by Sir Thomas Slade, the Royal Navy's surveyor. Napoleon Bonaparte spent time on this vessel before his exile in St Helena. Her name came from Greek mythology: Bellerophon rode the winged horse Pegasus and killed the monster Chimera, but then displeased the gods by presuming to visit them on Mount Olympus.
> 
> STAR TREK:  The USS Bellerophon [NCC - 62048]  was a Nebula Class starship that fought the Borg at the Battle of Wolf 359 in 2367. It was destroyed, along with 38 other starships. The Bellerophon was part of the first wave of the USS Saratoga, USS Yamaguchi, USS Melbourne destroyed in battle against the Borg. Not to be confused with the USS Bellerophon [NCC - 74705], an Intrepid Class starship launched in 2372.


	7. TO THE DEEPEST SPRINGS OF LIFE

* * *

 

**"The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life."**

  ** _\- Carl Jung_**

 

 "Are you coming?" Kathryn asked Ethan as he lifted the cello and carried it inside where it had its place in the corner, just in front of the French window.

 He had been sunk in Bach's Cello Sonata, and after the last notes had drifted away, he had stared into the distance, as if there were no trees to block his view. Ethan never spoke while he exalted the most beautiful notes to heaven. Naturally, years of being alone up here in the mountains had left him with no one whom he could talk to, anyway. But she'd sensed early on that he never liked being disturbed. A frown would mar his already lined face the moment her footsteps hit the deck. Lately, the frown would change and she'd be graced, as an apology, by a glimmer of a smile. She heard him early in the morning when she opened her eyes and in the late afternoon.

 Now she was in a hurry to get moving.

 "Ethan…"

 Ethan looked up.

 "You're in a hurry, Admiral Janeway. Too eager to get away from Beaver's Lodge."

 "I'll shall have you know that I love Beaver's Lodge. Maybe I'm in a hurry to return here."

 "Now that warms my aching heart," he countered, and his smile lit up a face that was sometimes  bland, cynical.

 She had her duffel packed, intending to travel light back to Indiana. She hadn't seen her home in a month and it was time she dusted the furniture, collected some of her own books, got her vid-com, her paints. Ethan had wanted to see her home and she had happily invited him along.  Now it seemed he was dragging his feet.

 "Come along, then," she coaxed. "Your shuttle awaits."

 He stood still. The stand with its sheet music, the cello, the man standing next to the instrument gave her a sense of the completeness that was Ethan Bellamy. She could no longer be embarrassed in his presence. He had seen her at her absolute worst and most vulnerable. For some reason, perhaps an instinctive awareness that she could trust him, she was glad he was the one who had found her. Now, after six weeks, she had healed physically and the total debilitation had gone, thanks to his ministrations. They had sailed on Deer Lake, scaled the cliffs twice, walked halfway up the mountain until she became too tired and they rested before making their way down again. There had been a few nights when she struggled with her demons and she'd wake to find him holding her hand, his voice soothing. His face had become a familiarity she looked forward to when waking up in the morning, or whenever she sat reading and looked up at him. His white hair was more silver than white and it gave him a different kind of attractiveness. His face appeared weathered, gaunt, but that was just a façade, because he was in such excellent physical condition. Who wouldn't be, living in this part of Oregon, so close to the mountains?

 She enjoyed Beaver's Lodge. She enjoyed his company. They had spent evenings discussing literary masters, their works, or his own _Songs of a Wayfarer,_ and the merits of that work as a debut novel. She listened to his music. She wrote short poems, mostly about her mother who had died before she could see her daughter return. There were so many things, so many, many things that had plagued her on top of the harsh debriefings, the even harsher court-martial. Gradually she was beginning to find her centre, beginning to ease the demons from her mind. She was finally beginning to see things in perspective and the terrible torment of her mind was silently receding. Ethan had done much in her rehabilitation.

 "Are you going to keep staring at me?"

 She shook her head, picked up her duffel and quickly moved to the back of the cabin. She heard his hurried footsteps behind her and smiled to herself. From the moment she was able to move around more comfortably, there was no stopping her and she had visited every inch of the cabin and its surrounds available to her. Every inch except his bedroom on the upper level. A short flight of stairs leading from the small passage off the door of her own bedroom rose to the upper level, but though she had been curious, she respected his privacy.

 Ethan was piloting and she was glad because it gave her time to reflect on the six weeks she had been in his home. When they took off, he glanced at her and grinned as he touched her cheek lightly. Then he concentrated on the controls, not looking at her again. He too, was pondering on something. He had been quiet the last two days and she had wondered if it was because she was ready to leave.

 "I'd like to come back and visit again, Ethan," she said softly, watching how the strained lines became a little softer at her words.

 "Good."

 With that response she had to be satisfied. Not a man of many words, she'd learned. His reclusive lifestyle was exactly that because he avoided the human race, she thought without rancour. She didn't know more about him than she had told him the day she discovered he was the famous writer, Henry F. Marchand. Again, out of respect for his privacy, she hadn't made any further investigations into his life. When he promised that he'd tell her one day, she took comfort that it came as a promise, a commitment that he would share that part of his life with her.

 They were returning later that evening to Beaver's Lodge. She still had another month of her enforced leave of absence and she could take an extra month after that if she felt she needed more time. After that, she would leave Beaver's Lodge forever.

 If she chose.

 Sighing deeply, she settled back in her seat, content to let Ethan take the conn.

 Kathryn remembered very little about the first days after she arrived on his property. She had entered a deep, dark world that imprisoned her and kept her mind in a state of silent sorrow. Everything - the debriefings, the trials, her own sense of loss and betrayal - everything became a haze, a misty world in which she moved like an automaton. She hadn't known in what a bad state she was until she tried to open her eyes, to respond to a concerned voice that called her name.

 A voice - Ethan's voice.

 One of her last, misty recollections had been kneeling by her mother's grave, then prostrating herself over it. Then her world finally collapsed about her. The darkness had begun to swallow her when she went up in her shuttle and only an instinctive reaction, honed by her long years on Voyager, kept her from plunging with the shuttle over the cliff. Ethan had taken her later to show her just where he found the shuttle. By his description, the craft must have teetered on the edge of the cliff. It shocked her that she had been that self-destructive. Though, when she broached this to him, he had been firm that she was beyond herself and had never been set on destroying herself. It had taken many conversations until late into the night to convince her that what happened to her, could happen to the strongest of men and women. She still had to accept that, because here was still too much disbelief within herself that she could have foundered like that.

 She had almost gone mad. She shook her head slightly to dispel those horrid images.

 "You're okay?" she heard Ethan's voice.

 "Yes. Yes, I am."

 "I'm glad."

 "Thank you..."

 "Another fifteen minutes and we're there."

 Ethan was a man of opposites. She was pulled back from the abyss by his voice, a deep voice that coaxed, that breathed life into the words he read to her. On the other hand he was sometimes grim, not given to communicate, and then she left him alone. He'd play his cello until he got tired, then went to bed, just giving her a cursory goodnight.

 When she lay in her bed, she thought of Chakotay often and wondered what they were doing now, how they were progressing with the reconstruction of Dorvan V. When she became fully aware again, thoughts of him had begun to take over. She missed him, missed their easy camaraderie that they'd had on Voyager, missed not having him beside her.

 She wondered often in the last weeks whether she had made a mistake, but then she berated herself. Chakotay had fallen for Seven of Nine, perhaps much against his instincts,  feelings that would have surprised him totally. Had she married him, he would not have been happy. Content, maybe, but happy? She had accused him of not understanding her. At the time, she had formed those ideas solely on the basis of her knowledge of him and the nature of their great friendship. She had, in the days following his declaration of his love for Annika Hansen, often wondered whether her summation of how he felt towards her, or how he understood her, had been a mistake on her part.

 Now, having met Ethan, she knew that she had been right in turning Chakotay down, however much it pained her to do so. Ethan had homed in on what made her vulnerable, on what had been her deepest fears, without much trouble and, she supposed, with a natural insight, one honed by his writing, his acute and deep observation of people and their motives.

 But she still missed Chakotay, missed him like her very breath. She gave a deep sigh as she felt  Ethan's hand on her arm.

 "You miss him..." he said, a gruffness in his voice.

 "Life goes on, Ethan."

 "Yes," he agreed, "life goes on."

 **********

 In the small alcove just off the dining room where she kept her vid-com, Kathryn stared at Chakotay's face. He beamed and she thought how she had never seen him look like that.

 "In a month's time?" he asked.

 "Only then I'll be able to get away. But I'm looking forward to seeing you and Seven of Nine. How is she holding up?"

 "Very well, I must say. Dorvan wants her to remain here to oversee all other technical advancements in the areas of planetary security grids. We're preparing better this time, Kathryn."

 "I'm very happy for you. Seems then I'll have to give Voyager to another captain..."

 "You're a hard act to follow, Kathryn."

 "Well, I'm not so sure about that. But Voyager is yours, if you're interested..."

 Her voice trailed. Her heartbeats increased. Chakotay would be nearer then, and under her direct command again. That way she could... She shook her head mentally, dispelling the illicit thoughts that crept into her mind. For a moment, Seven of Nine didn't exist.

 "Let's put that on the backburner for a while, Admiral," Chakotay said, his smile breaking the frostiness of the moment.

 "Does that mean you're willing to take command of a Federation vessel in the future?"

 "Seems like it - "

 "Kathryn, there's something you must see," Ethan's voice rang behind her.

 She didn't look back, but Chakotay frowned heavily.

 "Is there someone with you, Kathryn?" he asked quietly, the smile leaving his face.

 "Ethan Bellamy, a former Starfleet officer."

 "You're friends?"

 "Why not?" she asked quietly, the sudden change in Chakotay's demeanour a little disconcerting.

 "I contacted Headquarters two weeks ago when I couldn't hail you on your vid-com, Kathryn. Admiral Paris said you're on vacation and not to be disturbed."

 "Yes. I'm taking a well-earned break."

 "And this Ethan? You met him on your vacation? You were with him?"

 Kathryn thought how she'd heard Ethan's voice through the thick mists; how she had sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness and how Ethan pulled her back from the shadows of her tormented mind. She thought how, if he hadn't found her, she would surely have died. She thought how completely helpless she had been and how he'd fed her, bathed her, brushed her hair, her teeth, how he dressed her in warm pyjamas and how he ignored her cries of embarrassment. She thought how she'd fought him, locking the bathroom door and only coming out when the feelings of humiliation and shame had to take second place to sheer necessity of her survival. She thought how he'd read to her chapters from _Warrior Mine_ when his voice was the only thing she could cling to that kept her connected to her reality. She thought how he'd sat with her through the night and how, when she opened her eyes on the third morning, found him sleeping, his head resting against the bed, her hand still held in his.

 Of course she was with Ethan.

 "I met him on vacation," she replied finally, lightly.

 "He is with you now, Kathryn?"  The question was redundant but she knew he wanted confirmation, as if he couldn't believe that she could have other male friends.

 "Chakotay..."

 "Okay, okay," he said, the rejoinder a little too hasty. "I'm just...surprised, that's all."

 She wasn't going to justify her friendship, whatever the tone and colour of it, to Chakotay. But the crestfallen look on his face was enough to make her heart swell to sudden heat again and a great welling of love overcame her.

 "Don't worry, so, my friend. Now, I'll see you in about six weeks..."

 "Thank you. We can't wait for your arrival..."

 When Chakotay's face was replaced by the Federation insignia, Kathryn gave a deep sigh and covered her face with hands that trembled.

 "So that was your Chakotay."

 She rocked up, swivelling the chair to face him. Ethan stood about three metres away from her but his eyes were inscrutable.

 "Yes, that was Chakotay."

 "A married man."

 "Yes."

 "Who lives on Dorvan."

 "Yes."

 "And in six weeks you're going to visit him."

 "Of course. We're friends, Ethan. I promised them before the debriefings ended."

 "Sure. You're friends," he said dismissively.

 "What's that supposed to mean?"

 "Kathryn, you happened on my doorstep and I helped you. That's all. Your life is your life."

 She rose from the chair and walked up to him. Although he wasn't as tall as Chakotay or Tom, she still had to stand on tiptoe to reach up and leave an imprint of her lips on his cheek. Ethan touched the spot she had just kissed.

 "Ethan, let this part of my life die a natural death," she said softly, her voice pleading with him.

 "However long it takes?"

 A lump formed in her throat and her eyes felt moist. She could only nod as she took his hand and led him up the stairs to Phoebe's studio. She had mentioned in passing that she painted for relaxation and fun, nothing earth-shattering, and he had expressed a desire to see what she had done.

 The room was airy, with maximum light streaming in from the great window that covered almost the entire wall. She stepped inside, with Ethan just behind her, and then stood stock still. She gasped. Her easel stood near the window, but the palette and paints and brushes lay strewn around the room, like someone had gone mad. It was the work of a madman, the destruction that could only have been the result of a deranged individual.

 She had no recollection of painting in this room, yet she knew that she had done what was on display. On the easel was a painting and two were stacked against the wall. She had a vague, very vague memory of a person in this room flailing about, her movements jerky, tormented. Shadows mainly, shadows without any discernable delineation that swept the canvas.

 Ethan had moved past her and lifted a painting that stood against the wall, then walking to the easel, removed the one on there and place the one he picked up gently on the stand. Then he stood away and studied the painting.

 "This is the first one you did, Kathryn. The one I took off here was the last and that one over there, you painted second."

 "Now you know," she said, her voice sounding emotionless.

 "What am I supposed to know? That Kathryn painted three canvases in a given order? No, it's not that easy, though the way they were stacked might have helped in making a decision about their order."

 "It's nothing earth-shattering - "

 "So you keep telling me, Janeway."

 "Now, it's Janeway."

 "Fine then: Kathryn. So you keep telling me."

 "Phoebe, my sister... She is gifted."

 "I know. Saw her work at an exhibition in Paris three years ago. She is truly gifted."

 "So why the interest in mine, Ethan?"

 Ethan turned away from the painting and walked slowly back to her.

 "I don't think you ever had the chance to look properly at your work. I understand you were not yourself and on the point of a nervous collapse. You don't remember much of what you did here, do you?"

 She shook her head, too mute to answer him, not wanting to look him in the eyes. Why, oh, why did she admit him to her own little sanctuary?

 Eyes green like pines. That's what she called the colour back at Beaver's Lodge.  Fingers pressed under her chin and urged her to look up at him. She was shocked at the sharp glint of the green. Piercing, unnatural, she was forced to look.

 "It's nothing, Ethan."

 The fingers released her chin and he turned away from her, this time pulling her along to stand in front of the painting.

 "This one, Kathryn, you aptly named  _Stranger in a strange land..._ "

 "I - I didn't give the painting a title..."

 "No, but it's uncanny. You thought about naming it like that. It's so full of darkness, so much torment, that it's hard to look at it really intently and see what there is under the black and grey shades. Now, it's very three-dimensional. Look, cross-eyed, if you must, but pull your gaze back and pretend you're looking at a blurred image."

 She tried and tried and finally, her eye-sockets aching, the image lifted, rising from the depths of the deep right into her conscious. Chakotay, staring straight at her, his eyes dark and brooding.

 "I - I don't know what to say. I never meant for this to come out like it did."

 "An artist is rarely prepared for the stunning results of his product, Kathryn. Shocking, isn't it? What was it I said downstairs about Chakotay?"

 She closed her eyes and felt the prick of tears again.

 "However long it takes..."

 "The man is embedded in your deepest sorrow. If you ever want to purge him, not as the friend, but the lover he used to be, I can't take you down that road, Kathryn."

 "Ethan, I can't help what I feel..."

 "I had a wife once and I stopped loving her, Kathryn. Believe me, I have yet to free myself of the guilt of losing her. I know you can't help what you feel. Look at the painting... He's there, as clear as the spirits in the skies. Even the lines of his tattoo are clear, if you know how to look..."

 "Let's go, please. This is killing me, Ethan."

 "Don’t you understand, Kathryn, that this was the beginning of the process of your grieving? Look at the second painting and the third. There's progression. The shades have gone from black and dark tones and there's more light, just  a sliver... I believe that in those moments, you experienced clarity, of your path forward. This is how you will express yourself and how you will see that you have grown and one day, maybe, you can tell me all of it was part of the process of closure."

 She couldn't speak again and felt herself pulled against his chest, a comfort, a welcome home against which she had rested many times in the last month. Chakotay was still so much part of her... And Ethan had shown her just how much. Ethan, who had just told her something of his past life. Whatever the trauma he suffered, it had ended with him being assimilated and the doctors of Starfleet Medical successfully severing him from the Borg Collective and restoring him to humanity again. But with it must have come all the memories and the pain of reliving his past.

 While her head accepted Chakotay and Seven as a happily married couple, her heart wanted him, even if only for a moment. There was an awful reality somewhere, and going to Dorvan V  might reveal that truth for her, an irrevocable acceptance that they would never have been happy together. Contented, yes. But happy? She knew Chakotay would have missed seeing what Ethan saw in her paintings. If truth be told, she had missed those things too, but Ethan was right. The viewer often saw something the artist never intended, that just happened to be there in the absolute correct context, time and tone. It took someone like Ethan Bellamy to see into her heart.

 It scared her and it thrilled her. Ethan held her gently away from him. In his eyes was only empathy, a great deal of caring. In his eyes, there was the knowledge that she had not healed completely, that she still needed more time, and the affirmation of his support for her. Like a drowning sailor she held on to him, her lifeline.

 "Ethan...help me, please..."

 "Come, Kathryn," he said, "come home with me..."

 ********************

  

 


	8. DORVAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The planet Dorvan, 5th planet of the Dorvan System, remains Chakotay's homeworld in my universe of stories.
> 
> 2\. We meet Mike Ayala's family, a little bit of backstory for him.
> 
> 3\. I have drawn Chakotay a little less heroic in this story, so do forgive the writer.

* * *

 

In a house of in the first city of Dorvan, the Ayalas sat down to their evening meal.  It was a welcome break from the grind of overseeing the security grids with Annika Hansen, which had left Mike drained and looking forward to relaxing with his wife and two sons. The sons were with friends but would return later at the time he had stipulated they should be back. Lately the boys had been itchy, even after only about two months on Dorvan. All the years they had lived with their mother and grandmother on Earth; the adjustment to normal life was as difficult for them as it was for him. They hankered for Earth, but he had promised Chakotay... Diego, at twelve, was feeling it particularly. He had been settled in his school and had had to leave friends and make new ones. Peter was more flexible, more like his mother.

 Lately, even Carmen had been a little touchy, and he wondered if he should break the news that they could return to Earth. That first day when he'd beamed down from Voyager and seen her, before the boys ran out to him, he had known that it had been worth waiting every day and week and month and year and believing Captain Janeway that they would meet their families again. Now they were spending time strengthening the bond of family.

 He thanked Kathryn Janeway from every fibre of his being that had longed for home, that had waited for news of his wife and his sons, that dreamed night after night of dark eyes and auburn hair, that Captain Janeway succeed in her primary mission - to get them home. It was time now to repay her for everything she had done for them.

 News had reached them of the imminent arrival of Admiral Janeway, and it seemed the entire planet was preparing for her visit. She was only to be the guest of Chakotay and his new wife Annika Hansen, but the way the former crew of Voyager who had settled on Dorvan and helped in rebuilding the planet had carried on, it seemed as if she were to be an overnight guest at every house. She was still on her vacation which, many had heard, Admiral Owen Paris had forced upon her, declaring that she needed to unwind first before taking up her duties as Admiral Janeway. They were all happy, for the sake of Voyager and her crew, the Maquis especially, but mostly for Admiral Janeway herself that she had been exonerated at the court-martial, a turn of events that had shocked all of them.

 It was all over, they agreed, and life could go on. Those on Dorvan V could look forward to seeing their former captain again and give her their assurance that they would gladly serve under her any time.

 "So, the famous Admiral Janeway is visiting Dorvan?" Carmen Ayala asked her husband.

 "Yes. I'd like to see her again. She wouldn't let us stay for the hearings. Said we had to get on with our lives and get away from Starfleet, rebuild our fractured family lives. I wanted to stay, you know?"

 "Why didn't you, my husband?" Carmen asked again, her eyes warm on Mike.

 Their love had blossomed all over again when Voyager returned and she thanked God every day that they could be privileged to be a family again. Mike had beamed down from the ship and stood there looking a little lost, until their eyes connected. The boys had broken away from her to run to their father. They'd missed him; in the seven years that Voyager was gone, she had kept his memory alive for them. In the last three years, they had been able to communicate and that was a source of great merriment and wonder and honour, especially for the boys. Minutes later she had stood in his arms and cried.

 Now, Mike looked a little embarrassed. She reached across the table to touch his hand.

 "I asked you a question, Michael."

 "You don't know Captain - Admiral Janeway. She's tough as nails. If she gave an order, we followed the order."

 "But you could see she was going through a difficult time with the debriefings and the court-martial. Didn't you think to disobey her and force your loyalty on her? You told me you had done so on occasion on Voyager. You didn't comply with her orders then, Michael. Wouldn't she have appreciated her crew standing by her even at the very end of their journey?"

 Carmen Ayala felt her husband's shame and the shame of the entire crew upon her. She could not understand how a crew that fought and braved all the odds, led and guided with formidable strength by a magnificent woman, could not show their loyalty at the end. They should have 'punched their way through',  a term Michael said Admiral Janeway used often when faced with the impossible.

 "What would you know?"

 "Well, you went back for them when Chakotay and Captain Janeway were stranded on New Earth, didn't you? Did she threaten to cite you for disobeying her orders and then said those words which showed her love and pride in her loyal crew? And when you were in the void, you also disobeyed her order, and it had positive results, didn't it? Did she not say that she should cite you all for mutiny? Did you not tell me that her voice sounded soft and kind when she spoke those words, like a loving mother proud of all her children? And you, my husband, you spoke so very highly of this woman who guided you through unknown places... Why did you not follow her?"

 "Carmen, Captain - Admiral Janeway was adamant that we all go our own way and get on with our lives. Shall we leave it at that?"

 "No, because I think when you returned, that was the time your captain needed her crew the  most. Did you fail to see that she might have had problems? Did you think that even though she was a woman, she was so strong that she could never break, that she could never need anyone? I tell you, my husband, that there are times when you become tired of remaining strong for others and when there is no one to help you carry that burden... Your family... We waited seven years, another seven days would not have mattered."

 "Carmen, my love, I am ashamed."

 "Even your sons would have waited. Admiral Janeway would never admit that she needed you, and so you should have known..."

 Ayala looked up. Carmen smiled at him, her heart bursting with love.

 "I will make up for it," he said softly.

 "That makes me happy, Michael. Now, how are you going to make up for your deplorable lack of loyalty when your captain needed her people around her?"

 "Would you like to go back to Earth?"

 "Michael! What - why?"

 "I've applied for the position of aide to Admiral Janeway."

 Michael Ayala gave a cough. Carmen's heart thudded so hard she was sure he could hear her heartbeat. If this was making up for his lack of loyalty, then it pleased her. Her husband was a man of quiet surprises.

 "You never breathed a word of this before! And?"

 "I didn't know until two days ago, Carmen. It comes with a promotion to Lieutenant. I was successful. Forgive me that I didn't tell you immediately, but I wanted to wait until Admiral Janeway's arrival."

 "The boys have been wanting to go back to Earth. They will be happy."

 Carmen watched Mike gave an audible sigh of relief. He touched her hand.

 "And my sweet Carmen?"

 "I am over the moon."

 Michael's smile vanished.

 "What is it, Michael?"

 "We have to inform Chakotay..."

 "You will inform Chakotay. He will share your vision."

 "Carmen Ayala, have I ever told you that I love you?"

 Carmen beamed. Her husband loved her passionately, their sons loved their father, they were all to return to Earth, Michael would work for Admiral Janeway as her personal aide... What more could a woman want?

 *****************

 Mike Ayala drew in a deep breath when he entered the cool new building of the  Dorvan Reconstruction Commission to meet with Chakotay. Chakotay had been dour the last few days during their conversations and he knew it must have something to do with his communication with Kathryn Janeway and her pending arrival on Dorvan.

 Admiral Janeway would be arriving the next day and he thought it best to approach Chakotay before she appeared. That way he could tidy up his affairs here and speak with Admiral Janeway as well. He considered his appointment as her aide to be the highest honour and couldn’t wait to begin his duties. He had held off telling Chakotay until now because he was his second-in-command on the project. He was aware that Chakotay would be unhappy at his departure, but for himself, Carmen, and especially the  boys he wanted to be where they could have good schooling and prepare for Starfleet one day. Diego, at twelve, had already expressed the desire to enter the Academy.

 He was excited about the move. Carmen, not given to being overly loquacious, had spoken her mind and had made so much sense that he wondered how they could have been so lax in never  seeing how Kathryn Janeway may really have needed them, even if she had pushed them away. Carmen made him realise that he was a worm of a man and from this had come the other, more shameful realisation that Chakotay, in particular, had let down their captain and his best friend. It was what he loved so about his wife. She could, in her quiet manner, be gentle yet quite firm and remind him of his manners, be the conscience he sometimes forgot he had.

 He reached the door of Chakotay's office, then hesitated a fraction before pressing the chime. When he entered, it was to see Chakotay standing by the window.

 "Ayala, have you completed the report for the primary orbital grid?"

 "Good morning, Chakotay. And yes, I have completed the report."

 Chakotay moved away from the window and sat down at his desk. He waved a hand, indicating Ayala sit down opposite him.

 "Sorry."

 "You've got much on your mind today. You've seemed preoccupied the last few days. Dare I suppose it's because Admiral Janeway is arriving tomorrow?"

 He studied Chakotay's reaction. An imperceptible flinch was all he got, but it said enough. Admiral Janeway's visit disturbed his former Maquis boss. Why it should, he couldn't fathom. Chakotay was happily married, wasn't he? Did Kathryn Janeway still present a threat to him and Annika? He doubted that that was the mindset of the admiral, however. The crew was convinced of the friendship between the commanding officers of Voyager, and there was no law that prohibited them from continuing that friendship.

 "You know that I tried to contact her on subspace bands," Chakotay said. "The first two weeks after the court-martial, she vanished into thin air. I got a message from her soon after, but nothing since then. Admiral Paris was quick to assure me that she was taking a break and didn't want to be disturbed. I find that unusual about Kathryn...not telling me anything..."

 Mike sighed. Why should Admiral Janeway tell Chakotay anything unless it was Starfleet business? The man had married Seven of Nine. He was happy; why should Kathryn Janeway's not telling him of her whereabouts bother him? Could he still have feelings for Janeway?

 "Maybe something happened?" he said.

 "And maybe nothing happened. Maybe she - "

 "So that's what's been bothering you? You're wondering whether Kathryn Janeway can function without you..."

 How vain could Chakotay be, after all? Mike hadn't wanted it to come out like that, but his words caused Chakotay to blush. He'd hit a nerve. He thought men  in particular were apt to imagine women couldn't do without them. It was a shot in the dark but they all knew about the 'what might have been' of the Captain and her First Officer. Now that Chakotay was married, it seemed he still wanted to have his cake...

 "I wasn't very heroic when I left for Dorvan so quickly, Ayala. I doubt she's forgiven me."

 "Chakotay, we all let her down by not insisting that we remain for the trial and giving her our support."

 Chakotay gave a small sigh. "Yeah, we let her down... I'm glad she's coming, though."

 "I can tell you we're all looking forward to seeing her."

 There was a short pause during which Chakotay's gaze remained fixed on him.

 "Ayala, you're wanting to tell me something?" he asked.

 Mike drew in a deep breath. Much as he wanted to stay and help Chakotay, it wasn't as if Dorvan would cease to function without a minor functionary.

 "Yes, I have to tell you before you hear it from other quarters..."

 "You’re leaving..." Chakotay stated, an air of resignation about him.

 "How did you know?

 "The past few days...drawing back when it looked like you wanted to tell me something. Your sons aren't happy here... Carmen was born here, but she's more bound to Earth than anywhere else. Where are you going?"

 "Earth. I've applied for the post of admiral's aide."

 Chakotay's surprise was genuine.

 "Janeway's?"

 "Aye. I was one of fifteen hopefuls, and four of them were former Voyager crew."

 "Then she must like you very much."

 "You're thinking she favoured me above the others? Admiral Janeway didn't make the appointment."

 And, he wasn't going to tell Chakotay who had appointed him. If Admiral Janeway chose to tell him herself, then it was better that way. Besides, Chakotay sounded uncharacteristically jealous.

 "I can't keep you here, Ayala. But you will be seeing more of Kathryn Janeway than I will."

 "It doesn't have to be that way. You've been promoted to captain. You can command Voyager or any other vessel for that matter."

 "I know. But...Annika..."

 It all came down to the ex-Borg. Annika would follow Chakotay, providing she could serve on the same vessel or at least be within hailing range. But it seemed to him that Chakotay was using his wife as an excuse for whatever residual feelings he had for Janeway, to justify the decisions he'd made to marry in the first place, and in the second place, to leave Earth.

 Chakotay had married Annika Hansen in a great hurry when all of them thought he'd become involved with with Kathryn Janeway. Not that Kathryn Janeway gave Chakotay any reason to think there could be something lasting between them. Then again, none of them would ever know what had happened behind the scenes, so to speak. Captain Janeway was always very good at masking her feelings and while she could successfully deflect any speculation about her and their first officer, if something had come of it, it would have been one hell of a surprise to the crew. That that was how effective their discretion had been. Whatever had happened on New Earth had not been pursued on Voyager.

 The surprise was that he married Annika Hansen instead.

 "What about Annika?"

 "She doesn't say it in so many words. But from her actions and reactions... Annika resents my friendship with Kathryn."

 Mike Ayala had never before laughed in Chakotay's face but the sudden gurgling that started deep in his chest just seemed to burst out of control. He couldn't stop himself and tears were streaming down his face. He couldn't see Chakotay for the way his eyes almost closed as he guffawed. When he finally stopped, Chakotay stared dumbfounded at him.

 "What...?" he asked, hiccoughing once.

 "Why are you laughing?"

 "Because that is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!"

 "It's not funny..."

 "No, it's not funny, it's downright hilarious. And it's your fault, Chakotay. You introduced her to jealousy, or what you perceive it to be. I'm inclined to think it's the way you want this saga to play out just so that you feel you are not to blame when two women fight over you. You deal with it."

 "I didn't say she was jealous."

 "And I didn't say the moon is green and pigs can fly! She's an ex-Borg! Even her celebrated logic should tell her that you were in Admiral Janeway's life first and secondly, you did have a history of which she had been made aware. Hell, she should even say that what you had with Kathryn Janeway before is irrelevant!"

 "Ayala, she knows all that. It's just, I love her and want to convince her that she has nothing to fear."

 He thought Chakotay's words a contradiction. The man loved both women. Maybe the colour and tone of the quality was a little different but he didn't seem ready to let either one of them go. Chakotay had yet to bury Kathryn Janeway as a former love interest and by the looks of it, he wasn't anywhere near that. He conceded that Chakotay had blossomed under the loving care of his wife, but men and women were strange beings. Great love stories of the past never involved two persons but three, and always embroiled in a triangle of passion with nothing grand to resolve the story but the inevitable ending of it in tragedy.

 Somewhere, Michael Ayala sensed, in the triangle that was Janeway-Chakotay-Annika, there was a tragedy in the making.

 "Annika is human after all..." he mused out loud. "So that's why you left Earth in such a great hurry and didn't stay for the court-martial. Your wife was very subtle in bringing you to Dorvan before the proceedings. Admiral Janeway would have wanted you to be there to offer support, loyalty, to offer your solace. Did you know her own sister rejected her?"

 Chakotay gaped, stood up and walked to the window again. For a moment he thought the warrior angry enough to deck him for showing disloyalty to Seven of Nine. Instead, Chakotay remained worried about Kathryn.

 "I'm not feeling too good about this, Ayala, but yes, I want to make sure Kathryn enjoys her short stay here. She - I spoke with her a month ago..."

 "You did?"

 He was surprised. It must be something Chakotay hadn't told his wife. Annika was a great individual, sometimes too peremptory, but that was a residue of her Borg life. She was beautiful, shapely, stunning, very, very clever and, she had gotten the most eligible man on Voyager to marry her. They didn't begrudge Chakotay his happiness, for he was happy. Chakotay had been blown hot and cold by Admiral Janeway, and over the years, Mike could see how his friend had struggled for some constancy in his life. He needed that as much as he was prepared to give Janeway that constancy. Chakotay had looked pinched most of the time on Voyager when it came to Kathryn Janeway. His marriage to Annika Hansen had given him that peace he sought. The raging warrior was raging no more. If only he could let go of Kathryn.

 Why was Chakotay so apprehensive then?

 "She called me, from her home in Indiana."

 "Indiana... then her vacation was over?"

 "No. But there was a man with her there."

 Mike roared with laughter again, a bout that halted suddenly and caused him to choke. Seconds later he recovered.

 "A man," he blustered, wiping his eyes. "Why is that so different from a woman being there? Do you know this man?"

 "No, I don't know him. But she sounded...close."

 "Chakotay, what's the deal here? Admiral Janeway can be with whomever she pleases."

 "Do you know Ethan Bellamy?" Chakotay countered, as if he hadn't heard Ayala's statement.

 "Can't say I ever heard of him."

 "Well, that's his name."

 "It's good to know that, right? My job with Admiral Janeway is going to entail her sending him flowers, or arranging weekend getaways in mountain cabins."

 "I thought she would - she would..."

 "What, Chakotay?"

 "I thought she would wait..."

 This time Mike, whose wife called him Michael, didn't burst into laughter. He sat and stared open-mouthed at his friend, wondering how Chakotay could have changed from an Angry Warrior into a Wimpy Worrier. 

 *********************

 She should never have come.

 That thought overshadowed all others during the five days she'd spent so far on Dorvan. Like a pervasive illness, it clung to her consciousness and spoiled what was supposed to have been a happy reunion with her former first officer, his wife and a few other former Voyager crew who now lived on Dorvan.

 She wanted very badly to call it Chakotay's fault, or Annika's fault, her former crew's fault or her own fault, but had to concede that it was more circumstantial than apportioning blame unfairly on any one person. Perhaps it was within herself. She had come to Dorvan preparing to be overjoyed to see him and to forget that she had almost lost her mind trying to forget him.

 At least she had been right in insisting that she wanted to stay in a separate abode and not be their houseguest. Annika Hansen was charming if a little aloof in her presence. If she had been any other person, that would not have been an issue in dealing with her husband's former captain and lover; she was who she was and whatever she had shared with Chakotay could never be erased. She could store those things in a corner of her heart, lock a key on it and throw the key away. But unless magic abounded in the air, it could never be wished away or act as if it had never existed.

 Chakotay was the one who had trouble disengaging himself from his friendship with his captain in order to conduct his love life, his marriage, his relationship with Annika untrammelled and with a clear conscience. She had made her peace; her decisions were her own and carried with them the burden of her own responsibility. She had been ready to be the perfect guest, be on her best behaviour.

 Already on the first day the seeds of doubt had been sown and the stirrings of unease had established themselves. And all because Chakotay had rushed towards her shuttle as she alighted and pulled her up in a bear hug. For a fleeting moment, she had forgotten that Annika was standing there as well and she had lost herself in the embrace. When he put her down and they walked together to where Annika had been standing, she could only, in great self-loathing, think how it must have looked to the former Borg. Chakotay's kiss on her cheek, one that brushed over her lips in a fleeting caress, had been a tad too long. She couldn't stop it and Chakotay should never have done it.

 After that there was an imperceptible coolness that she felt coming from Seven of Nine. The first two days it didn't really affect her because her visits to other former Voyager crew took precedence, and all of them had been very happy to see her. She had apologised to Chell and his sister, to Susan Nicoletti and to Kenneth Dalby for her stand-offish behaviour during the debriefings. The droop to Annika's mouth was forgotten as she lost herself in mingling with some of her former crew again. Chell, who acted more Starfleet than Maquis, had approached her for a recommendation to enter the Academy.

 "Because Gerron has applied as well, Captain. Icheb is already a cadet. He's very happy! I understand from them that you will be Gerron's sponsor too. I wish to show them that there is honour before age, and that age need never be a factor. The Academy has relaxed its stance on the maximum age requirement for entry."

 At Wolf 359, thousands of Starfleet personnel had died... And then, the Dominion War left the Federation decimated. Of course they had to lower the minimum requirements for entry.

 "You don't need to, you know."

 "I wish to become a full Lieutenant one day, Admiral."

 "Naturally, some courses will be waived because of your experience."

 "I was hoping you'd say that."

 "It's not my decision, but Admiral Paris's. He will conduct the evaluations."

 Chell had been surprised and he started blustering immediately.

 "E-Evaluations? T-There will be evaluations?" he stammered, his body swaying in the familiar manner she remembered so well.

 "Of course. If you like, and you write me a very convincing letter about why you wish the enter the Academy I will be your sponsor as well..."

 "I will do my very best, Admiral! And Admiral, no need to apologise, you know. We all love you..."

 It had been heartening to hear their reactions. Kenneth Dalby was to settle permanently on Dorvan. When she spoke with him about the debriefings, he waved his hand dismissively.

 "Don't worry too much, Admiral. We all knew you were going through a hard time and your main concern was to see us settled first. It was always that way on Voyager. You saw to us first... I felt privileged that even at the end, you could still do that, no matter how tired you were."

 She had never thought about it quite that way and it became the one thing she could hold on to during the next three days.

 But the revelation was Carmen Ayala. Kathryn had taken to this woman instinctively and most naturally. Carmen was Dorvan born but had been living on a planet on the other side of the Badlands with her two sons. Later, when they learned that her husband was on Voyager, they had made the trek to Earth and settled there. A beautiful, gentle woman with long, silky black hair, she exuded calm over her family and had an invisible hand in controlling them.

 "Admiral Paris tells me you're to be my new aide, Lieutenant," she told Mike when they came to visit her the evening of the second day. "And may I say congratulations on your new posting."

 "Thank you, Admiral."

 Carmen and the boys had been standing a little behind him. When Mike moved, they stepped forward. Carmen had Chakotay's colouring and the same tattoo on her left brow. She had a lovely smile, a little shy, but it transformed her features. Carmen held out her hand in greeting.

 "I am Carmen, Admiral Janeway, and these are our boys, Diego and Peter..."

 She had greeted all of them, then invited them to stay to a meal. By the end of the evening they had agreed that they would make the journey back to Earth with her on the USS Gainsbourg. Although Carmen didn't converse much, she struck Kathryn as exceedingly wise whenever she did speak. The boys, particularly Diego, were very interested in science and wanted to attend the Academy one day.

 That part of her vacation had been good. Perhaps better than good. She had established relations again with her former crew. Suddenly, her deep angst and the nervous collapse she had suffered began to pale. She was beginning to enjoy her short vacation on Dorvan.

 It was Chakotay, however, who couldn't seem to stay very far away from her. She had wondered idly whether they didn't miss him at his office or whether Annika didn't address the issue with him, not least because he was away from his abode so often.

 Her heart thudded as she recalled the previous day when he had asked her to accompany him to a remote village on the continent, to assess the progress made there after the entire region had been razed. The amount of reconstruction - new houses, official buildings, the revitalisation of the vegetation with irrigation from underground water sources - was impressive, seen in the light of the Dorvan peoples' move away from technology. Chakotay had been quiet on the way, and when the shuttle touched down on an area designated for launching pads, he had remained seated, looking deep in thought as he gazed out the viewscreen.

 "Are you coming?" she asked as she prepared to get up.

 "I'm sorry I didn't stay for the trial..."

 "We've been over that. And the trial is over," she replied in an attempt to make light of the situation.

 "I haven't forgotten you, you know."

 "Chakotay..."  His name was whispered, a sigh more than anything. She didn't want to get involved and for four days she'd had to rein in her emotions. His voice, his face, his demeanour were still so endearing. It was easy to forget herself and just kiss him, hold on to him forever.

 "I still love you."

 "You...can't..."

 "I know. Annika...she is very special," he admitted

 "Then hold on to that, will you? We can't be anything other than friends. I'd like to leave here with that still intact."

 "Kathryn, I - "

 What did she see in his eyes that she didn't want to see?  That he still desired her? Did the action follow that thought as if riding in tandem, one behind the other?

 The next moment he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her momentary shock changed to dazed wonder when his lips burned into hers, their touch erupting in flaming passion. She melted into him but just as quickly as the kiss started, it ended. She pulled herself violently from his grip, gasping as she realised the magnitude of what just happened. Chakotay was breathing raggedly, his eyes aflame.

 "You still love me," he stated.

 She wanted to burst into tears. It was inevitable. Every time he touched her, it seemed she was going to expose herself and show him how weak she was, how vulnerable. She tried to think of Ethan, tried to engage some of his cynicism, but it was impossible. Ethan remained far, far away in his mountain cabin in Oregon. In those moments she needed him.

 "I can't deny that, but coming here was a mistake," she admitted finally. Chakotay looked forlorn, his eyes a little wounded. She felt the wretchedness, which had been creeping up on her since the day she arrived, increase ten-fold. She touched his cheek in a gentle caress. "I love you, Chakotay, but loving you is a cross which only I must bear. I'm leaving the day after tomorrow and I want to have good memories of Dorvan and its people. Please, let me have that..."

 After a long pause he broke the silence.

 "You’re right. Annika is a good person, an excellent partner, my wife. I do love her and she's good for me. It's just that I can't let go of you..."

 She wanted to tell him to act like a man, to observe decorum even if it killed him. He had initiated the contact between them, not she. But she was weak too, to allow the touching and kissing to continue, to succumb to the heady, painful joy of being in his arms.

 "Chakotay, let me establish something here: I love Annika Hansen as the daughter whom I raised. I could never bring shame on her by allowing this to happen. I cannot hurt her. Please..."

 Chakotay had nodded and they had continued with the evaluations of the small town for the rest of the afternoon until they returned to the first city.

 Now, she was alone in her abode, counting the hours to tomorrow when she'd take her shuttle, take Mike and Carmen and their two boys and leave to rendezvous with the USS Gainsbourg.

 It was a quiet evening, and she had been unable to sleep, pacing restlessly, thinking of Chakotay. Yesterday she had wanted to leave on the instant but that would have been fleeing. She was no coward. Prove to Chakotay that she could withstand the undeniable pull between them was what she told herself. She was also in no mood to face Ethan, who could censure her behaviour with just a look, though she was certain he never meant it.

 She had been to the Ayalas earlier during their last minute preparations to leave for Earth and the atmosphere had been upbeat there, very infectious, and suddenly, she too had felt like it was time to take to the skies and get out of Dorvan space. More and more, she was thinking of Ethan although she dreaded his probing. The boys were eager to get back to their old school again. But even there, she was aware of overstaying her welcome, particularly as Ayala and Carmen were both still painfully deferential in her presence, preferring to call her Admiral Janeway.

 A soft tap on her door made Kathryn jump. It was late and she had already prepared for bed, wearing a nightie and gown Ethan had replicated during the first days she had lain like a zombie in his home. She realised with some bitterness that she still tired very quickly, despite the mountain hikes, sailing on Deer Lake and abseiling down the cliffs near Beaver's Lodge.  She imagined she could hear Ethan's voice, insisting that she was still on the way to recovery and not really there.

 She wasn't expecting anyone to knock after 2300 so it was with great surprise to see Chakotay standing in front of her. Her heart hammered erratically. For a moment only, she saw the mocking glint of Ethan's green eyes before she concentrated on the unwelcome guest. Chakotay looked hungrily at her, his fingers tapping against his thighs.

 "Chakotay, I don't think this is the time for you to - "

 "I must see you, Kathryn. Please, may I come in?"

 She should send him away, she thought. Send him to the arms of his wife. For the past six days they had danced about carefully, the unspoken pull between them threatening to undo them both.

 "I think you should leave. If it's business and it's not urgent, it can wait 'til morning. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. We can talk then..."

 "Please..."

 "Why are you not home, in the arms of your wife?"

 Her reminder of his marital state proved no boundary as he continued to gaze at her, his eyes heated. Sighing she stepped aside. He closed the door quickly behind him.

 "Chakotay! What - " she'd started when he pulled her suddenly into his arms.

 "I can't let you go out of my life, Kathryn. I know when you leave here, I will never see you again. I need you. I need our friendship."

 "Let me go...!" she cried in protest, trying to wriggle free of him.

 He was so tall, so strong, his chest inviting her to lean her head against it. What was her struggling but a pithy sham performance as her heart and senses succumbed to the headiness of his nearness? She was drowning, and drowning fast. He wouldn't let her go, pulling her closer instead. For a moment - a mad, mad moment she gave in to the need to rub her cheek against his chest, to close her eyes and never open them again, to love him beyond principles and decorum and give herself to him in selfish want of pleasure, to imagine that he understood her as no man had ever understood the deepest, innermost feelings of Kathryn Janeway. He smelled good, manly, the musky cologne intoxicating. His hand caressed her hair, and when she turned her face upwards, it was to only how his own head lowered, his eyes smouldered and his parted lips, trembling, came closer to hers.

 She should push him away and out of her abode, she was still thinking, when his lips touched hers and the instant connection was so electric that her whole world exploded into a white landscape in which she and Chakotay walked hand in hand into the distance, stopping occasionally to kiss.

 His lips seared hers and, like a flower just ready to open its petals in the dew fresh of the morning, her lips parted and she allowed him entry. Her breath mingled with his; she moaned softly as she gave herself to the radiance of touching so intimately. His tongue sought, fought, found, laved, played with hers.

 Giving another soft cry she threw her arms round his neck.

 "Oh, God, Kathryn..." he cried hoarsely as he took a moment to catch his breath.

 Then he kissed her again passionately, her whole body rocking with the force of the electrifying current that seared through her. She was losing the fight, she thought absently. Tears burned as she felt him lift her into his arms and carry her to her bed. His weight bore down on the bed and for the next few minutes she was caught in a storm of ecstasy as he pulled the straps of her nightie away and hungrily caught her nipple in his mouth. Every nerve in her body was sensitised from his touch and she cried out when he started sucking. She closed her eyes, breathless in the wake of the waves of pleasure that rushed through her body.

 Flame... burning flame... Her head knew no more as her heart leapt to answer the call of his body. Her trembling fingers cupped his face as she kissed him again and again, and when she shifted her body to allow him to fit snugly to hers, she knew it was over. Quick untangling of limbs, unravelling of straps and shoes and clothing that proved too stifling a barrier before he lay over her, hard as rock, primed to enter.

 "I love you," he whispered gruffly.

 "I love you too..."

 She felt his tip push against her soft folds, felt her core, moist, like the soft flesh of a clam close about him, felt how he sank into her, filling her, deep and forceful and welcome, giving a long sigh of pleasure as he paused to look at her again.  She felt his throbbing and arched into him, giving another soft cry as he started to move slowly in her. For a moment he paused to look at her.

 His eyes were glazed, his voice, when he spoke, not his own...

 "Kathryn...Kathryn..."

 Something, a distant voice, the call of a lark, the splash of a beaver into the icy stream, the sound of a waterfall, of ocean waves...a face, hair as white as silver snow, a voice calling her and the sound of her name pulling her from the shadowy depths... all brought her back to the present. Where her hands had cupped his cheeks, her fingers had clawed into fists, clenching his flesh tightly in their grasp.

 Chakotay gave a surprised cry, the glazed look changing into bewilderment.

 "Kathryn, honey...what - ?"

 "No...not this...not this... Stop, Chakotay..." she whimpered raggedly.

 His body shocked to stillness. Without a word she pushed him away from her, cast him out of her body, his organ a vile evil snake that deserved to be ejected for the illicit intrusion it was. Her face flamed, this time with deep humiliation as he began dressing again. She sat on the other side of the bed, pulling her gown tightly to her, her hands trembling, her teeth chattering. She didn't look at him, but waited for him to get dressed. Neither spoke, the action of returning to their bodies their self-respect, their decorum, their sense of right and wrong the only thing that created any kind of alarming seagull-like cries.

 Only when her front door closed again did Kathryn expel her breath, breath she had held from the moment she had thrust him out of her depths.

 Dry-eyed, she sat facing the wall, her body beginning to shudder.

 ***************

 END CHAPTER 8 


	9. MOONLIGHT SLEEPING ON A MIDNIGHT LAKE

* * *

 

 **"We are homeless, we are homeless**  
**The moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake**  
 **And we are homeless, homeless, homeless**  
 **The moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake"**

**_-  Paul Simon and Joseph Shabalala._**

 

Ethan Bellamy had a healthy respect for good whisky, especially if he sipped it on empty stomach at 0700 when the first glow of morning had passed and the sun peeped above the tree tops. He held up the snifter, tilting it to let the fullness of the liquid grow. Full refractive gold colour, a powerful, uncompromising body which, when inhaled, reminded him of the smoke of burning wood, sea salt, peat, sweetness that heralded a strange, exciting honey. A dram that was as complex as it was deceptively smooth, the taste lingering with half-hearted reluctance to leave his senses. ** _  
_**

 Like her.

 Grimacing as he realised that he was a little light-headed, he turned and walked into the lounge, putting the snifter down on the coffee table. He threw a glance at the bedroom leading off the lounge and grimaced again. He never needed much sleep but he must have been deeply asleep when she arrived in the dead of night. He'd only heard a sound when the back door opened and closed. There hadn't been any wind forecast the previous evening, so the way the door slammed shut had given him some indication of the intruder's state of mind.

 Intruder?

 Somehow, he had known it was Kathryn. He lay, eyes wide open after the back door had banged with so much force, and listened to the sounds as she moved through the house to reach her bedroom. Then he heard the bedroom door slam shut, followed by things being thrown around, thudding, one or two words, indistinct, but definitely her voice. After that, everything was quiet.

 He had taken a deep breath and settled back against the pillows. But sleep had eluded him the rest of the night. Lying awake proved no barrier against thinking what might have happened, so he rose, pulled on a robe and walked to his office. A few thousand words would salve his restlessness and provide some order to his disordered mind. _The Raging Moon_ was progressing. Kathryn had asked him about his latest work and he had, for the first time since he started writing, shared some of his impressions, even used Kathryn as sounding board. She proved a good one too, incisive and intuitive, challenging him to the point of frustration and anger at times. Then she'd bite her lower lip, thinking, thinking, her eyes mutinous or stubborn, whichever mood required that look, and tell him to go to hell.

 "Why, just because I don't have a title yet?"

 "Because you should have had one by now. The mood of what you've written so far should give you an indication. Oh, why am I telling a writer how to write!"

 He had stared at her, long and hard, her blue- grey eyes glowing with indignation. Sometimes those same eyes would be shuttered, blocking out any intrusion. At other times, he'd see the shadows lurking there and then he knew she remembered grief, mysterious entities that kept her shackled to her past. Then there were times that the light laughed in her eyes and he wondered if she knew how her face changed from being attractive to simply beautiful...

 "You shift with the moon, did you know? Like a beautiful, great big disc floating across the firmament, waiting for the precise moment that the ebb..."

 He had looked at her, stupefied for a few moments, a slow smile creeping into his face, resisting the urge to kiss her.

 "What...?" she asked, equally mystified at his expression.

 "I have the title."

 "Eh?"

 "The Raging Moon..."

 "Oh?"

 And that was the only reaction he got from her, not missing the pleased look in her eyes though. It had been excellent, for he kept working, his creative energy and appetite sharpened ten-fold since her arrival at Beaver's Lodge.

 "You don't mind?" she had asked one day.

 "No, you keep me on my toes. No one has ever done that."  And he had thought then how Mel had never cared about his writing.

 "Then I'm glad I could help. You're going to mention me in your story?"

 "Ha! Who's vain now?"

 She had laughed, and it had been good to hear the lightness of it, the new freedom of expression.

 "Fine. It's just that I didn't think any input on my part would be important enough for Henry F. Marchant...or Ethan Bellamy..."

 "Oh, believe me, it's working, Kathryn."

 He had felt proud, felt he wanted to hug her fiercely. They were two artists thrown into a vortex, swirling madly round and round until they collided, like stars on a path to danger. On an impulse, he had drawn her gently closer to him and kissed her forehead, feeling again the unaccustomed pull, the warmth that had spread through him. It was as far as he dared to venture even as his senses wanted to claim more of her.

 He had drawn his characters close to the heart, close to home, close to despair, close to fear. And so, for almost two hours he had despaired with them, howling in helpless rage at the moon, finding so early on in the development of the novel little sign of pending resolution. Yet, it thrilled him, the energy of creativity coursing like life-blood through his veins. It kept him focused and when he had poured his soul into the text, wrung every emotion from his heart, he was exhausted.

 It was good, because he could put Kathryn out of his mind for two hours. He could shut out his extreme anxiety that her visit to Dorvan had left her hurting. Now, several hours and a good shot of Scotch later, he was ready for her. He swung round when he heard her door open. She avoided looking at him as she padded quickly to the bathroom. He sighed, knowing that she'd be there at least an hour before he could do or say anything to rouse her from growing depression. So he walked to the bathroom and knocked on the door. He smiled when he heard a curse.

 "Let me know if I should fix you something to eat."

 "Go to hell."

 "Cannot comply. I went there and never returned."

 "Then keep away from me," she snapped as he heard the taps running and again fierce sounds of fury as something thudded against the door. He flinched as if she had thrown a boot against his face.

 "I don't know how I can. You came to me. Why should I avoid you in my own house?"

 "Because you must. I have rights."

 "Is that an order, Admiral?"

 "Go to hell."

 "Told you, I'm already there - "

 "Then shut up."

 Another dull thud as something hit the door. Ethan smiled as he walked to the lounge. On a whim, he decided not to carry the cello to the deck. So he sat down in front of the wide window and played a few scales and arpeggios for about half an hour. He wasn't hungry even though he hadn't eaten anything since the night before. The whisky had dimmed the edge of his hunger anyway. He began playing, the bow elegantly stroking the strings, his head bent low as he concentrated. Once again, it was Fauré's Élégie that set the tone, continuing the mood that had pervaded his senses while he had been writing. The notes were mournful, ironically uplifting as they floated with reverent ease about him, as if they knew that they were merely created to stir another being into wakefulness and reason. The music lifted, and when the final notes drifted away, they returned, slipping seamlessly into the Elgar adagio he loved so much. He had been so deep in thought that he never noticed that Kathryn had left the bathroom and now was dressed, lounging against the jamb of her door. Distracted from his playing, the bow paused in mid-air as he looked up and saw her standing there. She was dressed in a sleek white pants suit and he thought illogically that she brought spring with her.

 Spring was not in her eyes. 

 He placed the bow carefully down and rested the cello against his stool. He walked slowly up to her and when he reached her, he took her hand and led her to the deck. He gazed long into her eyes, his hands on her shoulders. Sometime, he decided as he took in her wounded look, should their paths ever remain interwoven, he would tell Kathryn Janeway how unspeakably angry he was when he held her. Sometime, he knew, should their paths remain linked, he was going to tell her how he'd tried not to swear, or speak with damned crude vituperations of what he knew, with disheartening reality, must have happened on Dorvan V.

 "At the last," he started, carefully, "you extricated yourself from him..."

 She was quiet so long that he thought she was going to sink into the oblivion of her nervous breakdown again. She appeared unsteady and the wonder of her character was in the way she visibly fortified herself. The same strength, resolve, the implacability of her moral fibre that betrayed her when she was anywhere near Chakotay. But he waited for her, so brave, so imbued with her own pride as she kept his gaze. Yet, against the setting of such strength, all life quietly went out of her eyes. No tears. Not like the day when he inadvertently played the Mahler. Just a dry, haunted look, masters of the underworld in all their miserable employment visiting her eyes and turning them from blue-grey to dark, deep purple. At least, that was how it looked to him.

 "It was my fault..."

 "That's what some women say when their partners rape them or beat them."

 "You don't understand."

 "Suddenly I don't understand?"

 "I was as much to blame..."

 "Kathryn, honey," the endearment slipped out, "if by going to Dorvan you mean that was your fault, then perhaps, you are right. In that you probably did the right thing. But then you got drawn into something that has left you bearing the scars alone. Now you know what can happen."

 "We - "

 "You don't have to tell me."

 He knew they'd made love. Kathryn's eyes revealed not her unhappiness at not being with the man she loved, but the guilt of their illicit lovemaking, the guilt of stealing someone else's happiness.

 "N-No…  It's not what you think. I want you to know that it was your voice. I - I heard your voice, Ethan, calling me back from the brink of my own shame."

 Her words surprised him. He was the reason she came to her senses? In that moment he felt he wanted to murder the man who had taken the sunlight out of her eyes.

 "The man is a coward, if you must know."

 It was out. How he felt about a man he'd never met, but through Kathryn knew by reputation only; he thought Chakotay too willing to have his bread buttered on both sides.

 "He's not a coward, Ethan."

 But her eyes told another story, a story she wasn't ready to share. He sighed. She was the reason he kept awake most nights. She was creeping into his mind, ready to take his soul. He had found her half dead and kept her alive. But she was tied to Chakotay, Native American man who had married another woman. A Borg woman.

 "Fine. I just can't help thinking that he has a wife while at the same time keeping a special relationship with you hidden from his wife. You're much bigger than that, Kathryn. You deserve much better."

 It was good to see the way Kathryn pulled the dark clouds from her eyes.

 "I can never go back."

 "Good girl," he said, smiling tenderly before he pulled her close. "I missed you."

 He heard her sigh as she rested her head against his chest. He pressed his lips into her hair, his already intoxicated senses heightened by the smell of her shampoo. The sun was out, no longer the golden orange-red of the early mornings but the sharp steely blue of light. Spring was upon the earth, in the sky, the  way the breeze no longer carried with it the promise of frost.

 Spring carried with it his own disquiet. An invisible enemy that crept stealthily through his body, conquering every corpuscle and corralling it into compliance. The morning Scotch was his early warning signal.

 Every year, every spring. Every time. He had been denying its coming for months, silently wishing it would remain hidden forever, now that he'd met her.

 "Your heart is beating faster, Ethan," he heard Kathryn murmur against his chest.

 "I'm glad you're back," he retorted.

 He wasn't lying. He knew that the disquiet would continue. More Scotch in order to disengage. Very gently he held her back and looked deeply into her eyes. It was time to let Kathryn go, even as every sinew and corpuscle and nerve ending in his body screamed in denial against what he knew was coming. But right now, he wanted to enjoy her presence.

 "Breakfast?"

 "I'd love that..." she replied.

 **********************

 Admiral Nechayev stood rigidly at attention and Kathryn wished the woman would relax if only for a second. Didn't she know that she carried with her all the hopes and dreams of every young female cadet who wanted to climb the Starfleet ladder to the top? Still, it wasn't Kathryn's business to divine what made Nechayev tick.

 From her own experiences, she knew that she was extremely wary of anyone prying too deeply into her private life or wanting to know too much about her. Knowing that about herself, she could understand someone as reserved and aloof as Nechayev being careful about making herself vulnerable to others.

 "You don't have to justify your position to me, Admiral Nechayev - "

 "Please...here, if you don't mind, call me Alynna."

 It was a most generous concession.

 "Very well then...Alynna," Kathryn started, "I know you've done your duty."

 "We went overboard with you, Admiral Janeway..."

 "Please, call me Kathryn. And yes, you gave me a hard time. So here I am, come through the mill, so to speak."

 "Your friend hates me."

 Where did that come from? Kathryn thought.

 "My friend? Captain Chakotay is away on Dorvan V. I can assure you he - "

 "I meant Ethan Bellamy."

 Kathryn's eyebrow lifted. What did they know of her friendship with Ethan? What did Nechayev have to do with Ethan?

 "I know you must have had some dealings with Ethan during his Starfleet years. Whatever he feels towards you is not something he would share with the next person, nor is it any of my business."

 Kathryn remembered Ethan saying that he'd tell her about his life when the time was right. Obviously, their friendship being what it was, a beginning, on a very fragile footing at that, he wasn't willing to part with anything that caused him more pain. Whatever problems he had with Nechayev had to do with his past. She was curious about him, but above all, she respected his privacy.

 "I ordered his ship, the Bellerophon to Wolf 359. I don't think he's ever forgiven me. Afterwards… He went into hiding and you found him. I find that…inspirational."

 Kathryn smiled wistfully. Ethan was the one who found her.

 "Alynna, I can't tell you what's on Ethan Bellamy's mind because I don't know."

 Nechayev came forward and leaned with her fists on the desk. Her cold-as-steel eyes suddenly became softer.

 "I live with the consequences of sending fourteen Starfleet vessels to Wolf 359. You know that altogether, thirty nine vessels were destroyed in that battle. Bellamy's family was on the Bellerophon..."

 Kathryn closed her eyes for a few seconds. Ethan would never tell anyone this, never share such private information with anyone, not even with her. But Alynna Nechayev was privy to inside information. Also, Wolf 359 was not exactly the Federation's finest moment. Thousands of crew and their officers had died, passengers - civilians - on colony vessels called upon to help fight the Borg... Many were assimilated…

 Ethan had spoken of a wife. Did she too, die at Wolf 359? Did she too become a Federation statistic? Nechayev's eyes revealed a slither, a tiny aperture into what she was feeling, even suffering. Kathryn experienced a pull of compassion for this woman who felt responsible for the demise of thousands.

 "I cannot offer you absolution, Admiral Nechayev."

 "I don't want any."

 "Except Ethan Bellamy's forgiveness."

 "Perhaps, Janeway," Nechayev said softly as she turned to leave Kathryn's office. "Perhaps..."

 Kathryn wondered idly to what extent Ethan disliked the lonely woman. Did Nechayev imagine she, Kathryn could pave the way to redemption for her? That she had any influence with Ethan? That Ethan represented every man, woman and child who had died?

 "Thank you for stopping by to welcome me. I appreciate that."

 Nechayev turned back.

 "You're entirely welcome."

 A friendship had started, the beginnings of it tentative, the increments small.

 Kathryn sighed, leaning back in her great chair, a gift from Ethan. She smiled to herself. It would be a few minutes before Lieutenant Mike Ayala, her newly appointed aide,  would make his appearance after his lunch and it afforded her some time to reflect on the past weeks' events.

 "I'm hoping your feet will carry you back to Beaver's Lodge on occasion. I promise not to move anything from your room," Ethan had said, his eyes strangely darkened, the emerald green even more startling than usual. Was he lying to her, in spite of his generous invitation? Her room at Beaver's Lodge bore her identity now, with nothing moved from it, even photographs of her mother and Phoebe and Chakotay on her bedstand. She was as at home there as she was in her Indiana farmhouse.

 "Ethan, thank you. I was hoping I'd be able to return. You've been very, very good to me. I can never thank - "

 "Shhh, don't thank me, Kathryn," he had said as he pulled her gently towards him and pressed a finger against her lips. "I'm glad I found you."

 "I'm glad I met you. The circumstances weren't exactly a walk in the park. I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to find me in such a condition. But I have to leave. I'm much better now, thanks to you and this wonderful place. I think I shall always love it."

 She had sounded very wistful. Beaver's Lodge, Curry County, Oregon had a peaceful effect on her. It healed her in ways no counsellor ever could. She loved the untamed landscape, the sense of total, suspended quietness that hovered about his place, that drew her to it and allowed her to soak in its beauty.

 Ethan had hugged her. Despite his wiry frame, he was strong, the embrace firm and reassuring.

 "I have something for you, for your office, Kathryn," he had said when he stood back. His hair appeared whiter than ever, his face more lined, quite sallow.

 "Why, Ethan! Whatever it is, I'm grateful."

 "Then you're easier to please than I thought..." he had responded like a shot.

 "Oh, don't count on it. But a gift is a gift. The heart that offered it is greater, I guess, than the heart that received it."

 Ethan had gazed at her, in that strangely long, yet familiar look she had become used to.

 "I shall remember that..." he had said reflectively.

 Then he had walked with her to the shed at the back of the cabin and showed her her gift. It was a leather chair with a high back and solid, comfortable arm rests - shiny leather that smelled new.

 "Think of me when you sit in it in your new office, Admiral."

 She thought she had detected that sharpness again, a mocking tone in his voice. But she knew him now and accepted that about him with affection as she tested her chair, sitting back in it. When he snickered, she had stuck out her tongue at him. His eyes shuttered a moment. She wondered what he had been thinking, but the softness of the leather, the comfort of the chair created such pleasure that she had forgotten about it. The moment was gone by the time he had taken her hand and pulled her up again.

 The big chair had travelled with her in her runabout to Headquarters and with Mike Ayala's help, they had transported it to her office. But all the way to Headquarters and later, when she visited Indiana for a day, she couldn't get Ethan out of her mind. Just the way he looked before she left. It scratched at her consciousness, kept needling her. It was something she couldn't put her finger on, like a memory that slipped away into the depths when she might have seen such a look before, in another time and another place, another dire circumstance. The teasing, cynical look was gone and in its place, an indefinable scrutiny that mystified her. Also, his skin had taken on a translucence; he was extraordinarily pale. Hadn't he slept enough? Did he work on his novel nights through? Was he sick? But she had to let those images go.

 Finally, she threw herself into her work and for a few days she could put it out of her mind. Only, there were fleeting moments when his face loomed before her and her own perplexity grew.

 Ethan had been sad. It was in his eyes, the way his shoulders were hunched. Something was bothering him. Since her return to Beaver's Lodge, he had been a little on edge, more than he had been before. His face had looked pinched, sallow, the creases in his cheeks more pronounced. By the time she left, the pinched look had deepened, his lips almost white as he kept them compressed at times, as if he were in pain or trying to hold back a memory.

 Was he in pain? Was Alynna Nechayev the source of it? She couldn't help but wonder. Whatever it was, Ethan was exercising superhuman effort to keep it under control. So she played along with him, no matter that he knew she was playing along. He couldn't have missed the note of concern in her voice.

 "I'll miss you," he had said before she left.

 "I'll come up on the weekend," she said.

 It would give her the opportunity to ask him about his health, or perhaps, venture into the territory he seemed determined to keep locked up.

 However, the weekend had flown by as she became absorbed in her work, with Mike being too good-natured to refuse working the extra hours. She thought privately that Admiral Paris had deliberately upped her workload to keep her busy, to take her mind off things. But more than two months had passed and she was mending physically and mentally. The work challenged her, recreated in her the old drive to perform, as if she were back on Voyager and thriving on the pressure.

 When she had been sick to the point of dying, Ethan had called Doctor Paris to tend to her. That good lady was her physician now. They knew what had happened to her and knowing that, gave her a lot to do - work that became another form of therapy. She had been to see Doctor Paris twice and at the second session, she was declared fit for work.

 It was good being back in the saddle, although she missed Voyager. After  more than two months, Voyager was still at McKinley Station, her Borg technology analysed, but not compromised. Tuvok was there, supervising a small detail that especially had kept intact the cargo bay, which had been Seven's home since she had come on board, as a security priority. At the time when Kathryn had been at her most depressed, spiralling into a nervous collapse, she still had the presence of mind to insist they leave the cargo bay intact. One never knew, she remembered telling Admiral Gordon. For once Gordon had agreed, with the words that Kathryn Janeway and her crew were the best personnel to deal with analysing and protecting the technology of Voyager.

 She'd give the ship to Chakotay in a minute if he wanted it.

 "Admiral..."

 She looked up, distracted by Mike's voice, a little mortified when he smiled.

 "You were gone there for a minute," he said.

 "Sorry. Carmen, she won't mind?"

 "Carmen is taking the boys to Mars, Admiral. She - "  Mike paused, blushing a little.

 "What, Lieutenant?"

 "Ordered me to be of service to you and not to rest until she was happy. Working weekends...why, on Voyager we were doing double shifts all the time!"

 "And Carmen is happy?"

 "Well, all I can say is that she has threatened me with death."

 Kathryn had given a light laugh. When he had reported for duty, the first thing he did was to apologise for not supporting her at the court-marital. He had been mortified during his short speech. She had accepted gracefully, acknowledging that she may have been wrong in pushing them away.

 Mike and Carmen were a brilliant couple, loving and caring parents to their sons. She had been  thinking of asking them to take care of her Indiana farm whenever she was away herself for any length of time. Carmen still preferred calling her admiral; the gentle woman spent her time making life bearable for her husband and sons who were blossoming at their old school with the friends they had left behind. Carmen had her family firmly in hand. Kathryn was certain Carmen had a hand in her husband's warm apology.

 "With death, huh."

 "Aye, and she being…uh...being pregnant too..."

 It had been a pleasant surprise.

 "You're going to have a baby?"

 "Due in September."

 "Congratulations, then!"

 "Thank you, Admiral. And Admiral, we would not mind having a certain former Voyager captain as Michaela's godmother…"

 "A baby girl! Michaela…godmother… I think I can live with that!"

 After that, they had worked in silence. Ayala was efficient, disciplined. Always an excellent functionary of Tuvok's Security team on Voyager, he displayed the same diligence and watchfulness now, after only two weeks with her. Right now, he was in the adjacent office working on crew manifests for three Starfleet Constellation class vessels, two with a crew complement of 750 and the third a crew of one thousand. Vessels thrice the size of Voyager...

 Now that work had tapered to a slightly less frenetic pace, it allowed Ethan to creep back in her mind. She wondered what he was doing right now. She knew he spent the hours from 0300 to 0600 working on his latest novel, _The Raging Moon…_

Ethan hardly ever ate much, and after breakfast he played the cello, his beloved instrument handed down five generations ago.

 "My great-great-grandfather played. He was a product of Juilliard…"

 "And you?"

 Ethan had given a long drawn out sigh.

 "I'm Juilliard trained, Kathryn."

 Kathryn wondered how it was possible that all the creative genius of his forebears could jump so many generations and settle in one person. One of them must have been a great poet. Some of Ethan's poetry had crept into _The Raging Moon..._

 She gave a sigh as she keyed in the commands for his home communication on her vid-com. There was no response. The Federation insignia stared back at her, remained inactive for several seconds. Finally, a message appeared, the same as the three previous ones she'd read when she had tried, noting that Ethan was not available. She was really becoming worried about him. She hadn't heard from him. The past weekend when she had planned to go to Oregon, she had been snowed under with work, only remembering once to hail him. When he hadn't responded to her hail, she had simply put it down to his own work load and the old tendency to repel people.

 "I should have persisted then," she murmured reflectively, "let him know I wouldn't be able to make it..."  Her voice was tinged with regret.

 Now he seemed to have dropped off the coastal cliffs, or gone off-world. That thought made her sit up straight. Ethan was so reclusive, so private she didn't think he'd go anywhere off-world, or even anywhere else on Earth.

 "Commander Ethan Bellamy has not left Earth," responded the computer when she formulated that question.

 "What is the current location of Commander Ethan Bellamy?"

 It was a long shot, and one she knew Ethan wouldn't appreciate. Anyone could track him down, but no one was allowed on his property except the occasional workers she had seen there and the reserve staff who monitored the wildlife and flora. Mark had never been there and neither had Wanda, whom she had learned was related to Ethan. She remembered seeing Ethan standing next to Mark the day during the debriefings when he had come to see her. They were friends, although Ethan never mentioned them in such terms to her.

 "Commander Ethan Bellamy is in Curry County, the state of Oregon."

 So he was home. Just not ready to communicate with her.

 At that moment Mike Ayala knocked on the interleading door.

"Enter."

 When he stood before her with a PADD in her hand, she berated him.

 "You know you don't have to knock..."

 "Good manners, Admiral. I'm a Starfleet officer now and those protocols still hold much value for me. It feels like I'm entering your ready room."

 She smiled at the memory his words evoked.

 "Good, then. Any news for me?"

 He held the PADD to her.

 "A communiqué from Admiral Paris."

 She took the PADD and scanned the information, then smiled when she finished reading.  Owen Paris was on a quick visit to the Utopia Planitia shipyards.

 "An invitation to spend the weekend at Palings - "

 "Palings, Admiral?"

 "The Paris property. The name is a combination of the last names of Doctor Paris and Admiral Paris. She was Elizabeth Illingsworth..."

 "Oh, I get it. This weekend? Then I wish you a great time with the Parises. I understand little Miral is thriving."

 "So are her parents! They all dote on her, especially her grandparents. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Tom is finally home after a month long stint on the USS Brigadoon. By the way, you and Carmen and the boys are invited too. A sort of mini reunion."

 "Thank Admiral Paris for us, Admiral. I speak for my family when I say we're indeed happy to accept the invitation." Mike was quiet a second or two, then, "Have you managed to locate Commander Bellamy, Admiral? If not, I can try - "

 "Mike, that's alright. Mr Bellamy doesn't want to be found. He is home, mind you, but out of commission. He wants to be left alone. A few more days, then I'll try again..."

 Ayala cleared his throat, looked slightly sheepish for a second.

 "Perhaps you should go and punch your way through..."

 "Then again, it's best to let him breathe," she retorted, her tone clear that she didn't wish to pursue the matter with him.

 "Understood, Admiral."

 *******************

 Kathryn surveyed the scene before her. Tom was walking about, proudly holding baby Miral. B'Elanna, who had opted to take a final year at the Academy, sat talking with her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Paris. She had declared that the "fresher course" afforded her time with her baby. Carmen Ayala sat with them, looking very broody as her hand strayed to her stomach. Harry Kim and Mike were also deep in conversation. The Ayala boys had wondered off on the property, determined to find the owl Tom had spoken of that haunted Palings at night.

 It had been good coming to Palings. Already on Voyager her crew had begun to form smaller groups that had met regularly. Now they wanted her to organise a reunion for them at the end of the year.

 Kathryn gave a sigh. She had underestimated her crew once again. Her breakdown had been so total that she never noticed them in the courtroom. Some had moved on, understandably, but a few had remained to attend the hearing first. Magnus Rollins was one of them. The doctor, before he had been whisked away to Jupiter Station, had left a message for her, offering his support. So many she hadn't realised had been there all the time. Had she forgotten that she'd actually thanked some of them? She couldn't remember that she had been at her mother's grave, yet a poem she had written which she read only two days ago, was evidence that she had been there. Her world had truly been a dark haze in which she'd hardly recognised people, just seen them as images floating by through the thick mists. Only Ethan with his shock of white hair had remained discernable.

 The Parises had invited some of the former crew to their little social gathering. They carried themselves with so much confidence and had happily agreed to interviews whenever media representatives approached them. Kathryn herself had eventually granted the young reporter who had cornered her at Indiana, an interview. Young K'Lor of the Kekrean Media Centre had been pleased, and she had been more centred than she had been that traumatic first time. She was ready to speak with him and had shared some of her experiences in the Delta Quadrant. Neelix, who opted to return to Earth with them, was happily engaged in giving culinary tips to Admiral Paris of all people. She had seen James Hamilton and Mariah Henley flitting by, giving her brilliant, blushing smiles. They were going to marry and had asked her to do the honours. Dalby was on Dorvan helping Chakotay. Noah Lessing looked like he wanted to join Susan Nicoletti to his hip.

 She wished Marla Gilmore were here as well. The Equinox crew had remained close as a group, but Marla had married Magnus Rollins and they were on their honeymoon. They had wanted her to perform the ceremony and she had gladly obliged them three days ago. Young James, Magnus's son from his first marriage, had lived with his grandmother during his father's absence. James was eleven years old when Voyager went to the Badlands and now, at eighteen, he was an Academy cadet already in his second year and, she had heard, Icheb's new friend. Kathryn gave a contented sigh. James was eager to be in her Quantum Mechanics class during the third year. She'd have both him and Icheb in her class then.

 Only once Voyager was ready... She really thought Chakotay the best officer to command Voyager, but he had been cagey about returning to Earth in the near future. Unless some calamity happened, he wasn't budging from his home world. Besides, he had not come to see her off when she left Dorvan. That night that he had  practically made love to her... It had pulled her up sharply -  a rude, rude awakening when she'd realised that he wanted her and he wanted his wife and that he couldn't, shouldn't, have both.

 She had gone into a minor relapse, had managed to keep her warring emotions in check because the Ayalas were traveling with her in her shuttle. Only when she was on the USS Gainsbourg in her own suite did she drop her guard. She had spent the days brooding in her darkened suite, alternating between thanking Ethan and cursing him and cursing Chakotay, then in a flood of fury, blaming herself for what she had allowed to happen. Back in Earth's orbit, she couldn't wait to return to Beaver's Lodge. Ethan's home had called her from a distance, just as his voice had pulled her back to reality at the moment she and Chakotay...

 Ethan had homed in on precisely what she and Chakoyay had done. Thankfully, he didn't sneer or grace her with his usual cynical expressions. She had been as complicit as Chakotay had been. Part of it was her fault. A niggling doubt kept creeping into her thoughts. She should never have gone to Dorvan V. Knowing how fragile her own resolve had been - and still was - where Chakotay was concerned, her whole body repudiated her thinking of guilt and she had an instinctive, subliminal desire to be touched by him.

 Yes, she decided. That was why she went to Dorvan V. That she hoped Chakotay would touch her in the way it had happened, that he would make love to her, that she would feel their bodies join and celebrate with joy their illicit union.

 She had wanted to taste him, however wrong it was. That he didn't understand the depths of her soul had become a foggy deterrent hovering on the edges of her consciousness, easy enough to push away or just pretend it wasn't there. Suddenly, now that he was married, she wanted him, at any cost. She had wanted their bodies to merge as one, even as her mind struggled with principles, the conflict raging and then dissolving the moment Chakotay touched her.

 Only when she heard a voice from afar - Ethan's voice - had she pulled back, regaining her composure and her reason.

 ****************

 "Starfleet's newest admiral is deep in thought," she heard Admiral Paris say.

 Kathryn shook her head as she realised he was standing right next to her and she'd never noticed that he had walked up to her.

 "Too many things, Admiral. You are keeping me busy."

 The grey-haired man, his bearing so distinguished, smiled gently at her.

 "You look much better than the last time we saw you. Oregon has done you the world of good. My wife was right. No counselling would have replaced just being there and in Ethan Bellamy's company."

 "I heard he wasn't very keen on keeping me there," she suggested.

 "His eyes spoke differently. You were in a bad  state, by the way."

 "It's over now, Owen," she said, using his first name. "I have to thank you and Elizabeth, and I'm deeply grateful for Ethan…"

 He gazed at her, his eyes pensive.

 "Is it really over, Kathryn? You returned from Dorvan V looking a bit under the weather..."

 She sighed. Who else but Ethan and Admiral Paris would sense that she was distressed about Chakotay?

 "It has to be over. I'm rebuilding my life now. Some things must be left behind..."

 Owen Paris smiled, then squeezed her shoulder gently.

 "I understand. So, what is Ethan Bellamy up to?"

 She shrugged her shoulders, the familiar concern spreading through her. She was in Ethan's confidence regarding his books and writer's name. It thrilled her that she knew and kept his secret. But all her attempts at communicating with him had been  unsuccessful. Ethan was still out of commission.

 On other occasions, she could creep into his home in the dead of night and it wouldn't bother him. The look on his face when she'd left Beaver's Lodge had been merely one of detachment, of telling her or anyone else not to come near him. He didn't want her to be there and there was definitely a reason. It had nothing to do with his normally boorish aloofness, but the sad look on his face was haunting her.

 "I don't know... I really don't know, Owen."

 "Have you communicated with him?" Owen asked, frowning.

 "Several times. His message is the usual 'keep away from Beaver's Lodge', I guess. He's had enough of us…"

 "Maybe we could - "

 "Not 'we', Admiral Paris. I'll find out."

 "But, Kathryn - "

 "He hates anyone intruding. Even my presence might be disturbing."

 "You don't know, do you?"

 The look in Owen Paris's eyes made something turn cold inside her. What was it she was supposed to know? Did Alynna Nechayev, Paris and the other admirals know something darkly troubling about Ethan? Her heart pounded suddenly. Suddenly, her conversation with Nechayev a couple of weeks ago became far more portentous, sinister. They knew something no one else knew. Did Nechayev think that she, Kathryn, could get more information out of Ethan? Divine his thoughts which at most times were closed off?

 "Sometimes Mark and Wanda can coax him out of hiding or he'll go off-world, but this time of the year he deliberately secludes himself. The house is surrounded by a forcefield."

 "A…forcefield? Why the security?" she asked, feeling the blood drain from her face at the tone and import of Owen's words.

 Admiral Paris's blue eyes, so like Tom's, became even more concerned as he gripped her shoulders.

 "Over the years, we left him alone to work through it. Maybe, Kathryn, your appearance in his life is changing the rules of his seclusion."

 "Why?"

 "Who knows? You've given him a reason again, for living?"

 She conceded that she valued his friendship, and that Ethan indeed liked her if he allowed her on his property and in his home. Why should a forcefield deter the masters of Starfleet Command? It was chicken feed to the likes of Icheb or B'Elanna or Tuvok to decrypt it.

 "A forcefield. That shouldn't be too - "

 "The forcefield carries a Borg signature…"

 *******************

 

 END CHAPTER NINE


	10. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

He straddled the meridian  
and pondered over left and right  
for always did the need arise  
to taste the fruit of day and night  
no mind could fight the pull of love  
for two who would complete his life -   
he thought that one was not enough  
that both would end his inner strife

vanhunks

Their bodies heaved in the rhythmic movement of lovemaking. She watched his face, every expression, every minute change, the way his tattoo seemed to expand and contract in synchronisation with his breathing, or the slight contraction of facial muscles as he strained against her. His body glistened; she could feel the dampness on her skin - perspiration that met his own and mingled in cloying coy sweetness. 

Since the first time they had made love, he had loved her breasts. He had been drawn to her body, the gleam in his eyes growing darker and darker until she frowned at it, wondering what he was thinking or going to do next. He had touched her nipples with trembling fingers, then moved those fingers to his lips. She thought he was going to weep, for she had seen the gleam in his eyes overwhelm him. 

She had been tutored by him on their wedding night. It had been everything she desired and not known that she desired. Her body complied, for she knew that she would never hold back in anything that he demanded from her. Yet, when he filled her that night, the movement had stolen upon her, and she realised that the strange moistness between her legs, the wetness of her centre was the centre for the gentle probing of his fingers. She had cried out in surprise at the sudden sharp flash of pain, but her own heat, the strange, the alien desire which controlled her body from that moment on, had become the signals she recognised afterwards of her readiness to receive him. 

He had filled her to the hilt and he had cupped the sides of her head with his palms and kissed her tenderly. Not of her own accord her mouth had opened under his, and as his tongue entered her mouth and began to probe and taste her, so his hips urged hers to move with him. Up and up they rose; she had not known that all control could flee before the eye of the storm. Pleasure, pure pleasure began to rock her and when the moment had come - for she never recognised that moment - she learned of it only because he had woken her seconds later and told her that she had fainted. 

His smile had been kind, gentle, loving...so loving. In his eyes she had seen the gleam of victory, a victory that had become hers too.

And she could only whisper in unexplained wonder, "Chakotay...my love..." She had known, by the way his fingers laced in her hair, the way he brought it close to his face and inhaled the smell of it while still joined to her body, that she would never cut her hair. After that night, she welcomed him in their bed as often as he desired to have her, always giving generously. And every time she experienced what humans thrived on during the act of lovemaking - orgasms. They shattered her into pieces and they built her up. They tied him to her. She cried out at the height, loved to hear him cry out in the heat of his passion. 

Their compatibility awed him; it transformed her. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Even in his office at the Commission... Once there, he had turned her back to him and pressed her down, down, down to the floor until she was bent on all fours. She had looked back, tried to tell him she was not a dog, but his probing fingers were organs of miraculous ease themselves and gradually her resolve had lessened until the small of her back curved inwards and she presented her buttocks to him. She had remained still, until he bent his face close by her ear and murmured "spread your knees, Annika..." She had complied, feeling him lave her centre with his hardness until she was soft, swollen and dripping with her need. He had slid into her with such ease that she had little recollection that he had entered, except that he moved over her like a dog would. She had done as much as possible to be as open to him, pushing and straining against him until they collapsed together. 

Always, when he wanted her, the location was of little importance. She had been open then, open and willing and giving, as she was now. 

He loved covering her entire aureole with his mouth and sucking like a baby would. She would spill from just the strong suckling, of feeling her juices rush through her body to mingle with his. She'd help him by pressing her breast into him, so that he could savour her fullness. When he did that, she would run her fingers through his hair, shift and spread as wide as she could to allow his fullness to grow inside her, lusty and strong and hard.

She felt his lust, and her body responded to that lust as she wept her juices for him, utterly, alarmingly, shockingly exposed on the bed in the bright light of day with the windows open and the sun streaming through and smearing the floor, their sheets, their bodies with its sharp, yellow rays. 

Open, open heart, her body - soft, pliant, ready to do his bidding, ready to bend to his will and his lust. She loved him. For her, there was no other way to express it but through the giving of her body to him. Now she pushed roughly against him, feeling the weight and the force of his thrusting, the sounds emanating from his throat - rough, disorderly, guttural sounds that revealed his own demented need to find release. The soft purping sound as their bodies collided against one another, brought about by their glistening sweat..

"Move now, Annika," she heard him order gruffly.

Then she raised her hips, marked his rhythm, pulled her legs up and around his waist, giving him as much as she could. He grunted as she locked her legs and arched her hips into him at the same time, his hard length probing deep into her. They moved then, ugly shaped bodies on the bed, his darkly tanned against her own almost luminously fair skin. Her eyes kept his gaze as he pounded into her, each movement accompanied by a loud moan or guttural indeterminate sound. His face contorted and hers, she knew, mirrored his, out of all known lucidity and familiarity and form. His nose was running, his mouth drooled saliva over her, his eyes were wet, not from tears, but rather the sweat that collected and dripped onto her. A moment when he cried out again, and she knew that her nails had gored into his back for purchase and then, unable to find it, scored a path all the way down. 

Later she would use a dermal regenerator and repair broken skin.

For the first time in more than three weeks, they stormed simultaneously to their climax. Again, as on so many occasions, she could feel how he spilled into her, crying out aloud as he did so.

When eventually he collapsed over her, their orgasm spent, she felt her eyes wet with tears. For long moments, she savoured his body still locked with hers. She squeezed her sheath hard around him, enjoying the way he shuddered because his shaft was still tender and highly sensitised. Again and again she did so until he rocked no more. 

"You're mine," she heard him whisper, for his face was turned away from her.

"I love you more each day..."

Then she slid from the bed, untroubled by her nudity as she went to stand by the window, staring at the bed, seeing how he had turned himself on his back, his penis limp and listless. 

For now. 

She smiled. He couldn't do without her body, even though she knew that he had once loved another person, and that he had once, when the admiral had visited Dorvan, been with her one night. 

"What are you thinking, Annika?" he asked as he lay, hands behind his head, in a posture of utter freedom and relaxation, his body sated. 

"I am thinking that I am happy. You make me happy…."

"Why do you sigh?" he asked.

"I have always doubted that I could make you happy, but I can see you lying there, very contented and soon you will be ready again to make love to me."

"Yes, Annika," he said, his eyes gleaming again. Her heart raced. She wanted him again, even though his sticky semen still dripped between her legs. She loved that feeling, always thinking that that was where she had him, or that it was him sticking to her legs, that that was where she owned him. 

There was a long silence in which she burned to ask him the question that had plagued her as long as they had been on Dorvan. 

"Chakotay..."

"Yes?"

"Do you still love Admiral Janeway?"

Why was it when she mouthed the words, that her hands, covering her pubic area, started trembling? Why was she still so unsure? Why did the question just slip out like it did? Her heart beat faster, the waiting laying waste the fragile strands of her heart. He lay there staring at her.

"Why is that important, Annika?"

"I know that you were with her when she visited, in her abode. You were in her bed. Am I not your love? Do I not give you my body unreservedly?"

Chakotay rose from the bed, resplendent in his nakedness, his body still glistening. When he reached her, he took her in his arms. She rested her head against him for a moment, then lifted her face. His eyes were shuttered; the way the muscles in his cheek appeared to stiffen, the flush in them, was enough evidence that her words surprised him. Did he think she would not find out?

"My sense of smell is still heightened. You smelled of sex when you came to my bed..."

He looked away, the flush deepening to dark red. She cupped his cheek and turned him to face her. 

"I cannot hate you, Chakotay," she said, a little shaken at the truth, "nor can I hate her…" 

"It's over, Annika," he promised her. "It's over. No, I don't love her, not in the way I used to. I'm still her friend and she is still my friend..." 

"I accept your friendship. It is a part of your life that is unique, your right to own. Perhaps love was a part of that package, indivisible from friendship. I think how it is possible to fall out of love. But Chakotay, we are not friends. I envy you and Admiral Janeway having that. I try to understand that it is hard to let go of something that has been a part of you for a long time. I know that I won't forget you, that you will always be a part of me. I will love you until my dying day. If you loved Admiral Janeway like that and she loved you the same, then it is hard. But - "

"It won't happen again...ever..." he whispered as he touched the tear that rolled down her cheek. 

"It has made me unhappy."

"You did not show it," he said softly, his eyes kind on her. His palm rested against her cheek. She wanted to lean into him, allow the tenderness to sink into her and assimilate her senses.

"I have learned from Admiral Janeway to mask my feelings, Chakotay. Perhaps she still feels that way towards you."

"If she does, my love, then I do not share them. Not anymore. What happened that night..." 

Chakotay sighed, gazed out the window for several seconds heavy in the magnitude of what he had done. 

"You should spare me the details," she said, her mouth curving into an unwilling smile. "Please, you don't have to - "

"I must, Annika," he replied, his face sombre. "What happened was wrong, on my side, okay? I was still pulled between two poles and I couldn't help myself when I went to her. I am deeply sorry for causing you such pain. Kathryn and I...we both realised we were hurting you. When she left the next day, I did not go to see her off."

She smiled then.

"No, you were with me, in my arms, Chakotay. But you came to my arms too, after you left Admiral Janeway's bed. You made love to me..."

Annika remembered that night, weeks ago. Chakotay had been extra attentive, very raw and hard and rough and loving. It was as if he compensated for something, trying to obliterate a moment, a feeling, a love lost to him. She had been crying and laughing at the same time, unable to understand why she could feel desperately unhappy and deeply happy at the same time. He made love to her as he had never done before - with so much passion and lack of reserve. All the time, she smelled Janeway's moistness on him, tickling her nostrils when she inhaled. But all the time he thrust wildly into her, her body became pliant, soft and willing as she lost control and gave herself to him. Together they exploded and for a moment she had seen and heard the voices of a thousand couples as they poured themselves into one another. 

"That was when I resolved never to hurt you again, Annika."

She smiled. Chakotay's face looked clear; his words sounded so certain. He touched her breasts, her nipples had became hard nubs the moment he touched her again. Sighing with contentment, she lowered her hand and felt for his shaft, gently stroking until he was hard and heated in her hands.

Without a word, he led her away from the window and quickly pressed her back in the bed. By the time she made contact with the mattress, her legs were spread wide for him. He slid effortlessly into her, giving a long moan of pleasure as he filled her. Quickly, enjoying the surprised look in his eyes, she flipped herself over and straddled him.

"You want to play, Annika?"

"Oh, yes..." she agreed, then lifted herself, plunging hard down on him as her answer. He gripped her waist and then lifted, bringing her down with force on his impaled penis. On and on he brought her down on him, their sounds flying about the room, her hair flying about her face, his shaft so pleasurably deep in her that she felt like never stopping. 

But their bodies were racing to a climax and seconds later she collapsed over him, breathing hard. 

"I love you..." she whispered. 

Then she disengaged, watching with fascination as she pulled out of his penis until she released him. They lay on their backs.

"I can't get enough of you," Chakotay said in a gruff voice.

She didn't reply. She lay thinking. Something was happening with her body. She was sure that the night after he had been with Admiral Janeway, she had conceived. It had happened on that night, as certainly as the tricorder which she'd used the day before had confirmed it. Her whole being thrilled to the prospect that they had made a baby together, for a baby sealed their love and kept their bond tighter together.

She wanted to wait for a few days before she told him, so that she could spend the time reflecting on their coming child, a baby girl that would look like her and look like him, a baby that would make his love irrevocable. Her hand lay across her belly and she closed her eyes. 

She had studied the database extensively about human mating behaviour, had even on occasion, when she hadn't been aware of how she had offended them, asked members of Voyager's crew about lovemaking, about loving.

She didn't read much, had never read the famous authors of this century and previous centuries, but knew their works always reflected grand love stories. 

What was love?

She wanted to do everything for her husband. Even now, after three months together, she knew that she would love him for the rest of her life. He fulfilled her, understood her, taught her everything she knew about lovemaking, taught her to be human. She found him necessary to her breathing, an indispensable part of her life. Their bodies danced together in complete synchronisation. He owned her heart, her body, her mind, her soul. With all that, she loved him. She thought how far she had developed from being a lonely, isolated Borg figure, a number in the hierarchy of the Collective, one to whom life and its imitations and all emotion were irrelevant.

Now everything had meaning. With Chakotay, she had learned that meaning and understanding came hot on the heels of the new, untested, unknown entities that were called betrayal, deceit, acting out parts of that life with such conviction as to make the dishonesty honest.

When they made love, it felt to her that her mind was no more a mystery to him, that he saw deep into her soul and understood her. At the peak of their passion, she was so utterly vulnerable, yet she rejoiced that he took her exposed heart and soul and treasured it in his great hands. She was his, yet, with all the will in the universe, with all her skill as a scientist, with all her knowledge gained, she wondered if he were playing a part. 

Annika turned to look at her husband. 

Chakotay of Voyager. Chakotay of Dorvan V. 

He lay snoring gently, his face turned away from her. 

And even as she splayed her palm over her belly, knowing that it would soon show with the fullness of child, she wondered whether she would ever see into Chakotay's soul. 

She wondered whether she would ever really own his heart.

************** 

And Chakotay?

He lay on his back, his face turned away from his wife. He felt sated, his body spent in the afternoon of lovemaking. Today, he had kept the windows of their bedroom open so that the sun streamed in, but mostly to push the envelope with his lovemaking. Passers-by could hear them or even see them when Annika had stood earlier at the window.

She was as unaware of her nudity as he was and it was the way he liked it. In the late evening, they could walk through the house naked without any inhibitions. Many times, he would caress her in passing, or she would caress him and the action was as natural as the time he and Kathryn had been on New Earth and they had moved about in the same way. New Earth. A lifetime away, yet the memory of it was still close to him. 

He loved Annika, now. Kathryn had been right when he had asked her to marry him and she'd turned him down. She had seen he was leaning more towards the cool Borg woman who had today been extra generous with her body, a body that belied the cool aloofness she displayed on the outside. Annika was hot, always ready for him and always available and he loved that about her. He could, whenever he desired and especially when they were home or somewhere alone, pull her into his arms and indicate his need. Then they would explode into passion. 

Today he had noticed that she was withdrawn, pondering on something that caused a coolness in her behaviour. After their morning session at the Commission, he had suggested they come home, and with extra care and coaxing, had finally mellowed her so that she was again the willing participant in their lovemaking. He had known that Kathryn's presence on Dorvan some weeks ago had bothered her, though to the rest of the Dorvan community she displayed her usual friendliness. He, though, could see that she was troubled. 

And he didn't help. He still wanted Kathryn and he had been at a loss to define the dichotomy of his feelings for the two women. He wanted Kathryn and he wanted Annika. Annika was surprisingly, amazingly, uncomplicated and he read her easily, understood her moods, understood her motives, understood her heart. There were no complications in her. Making love with her was the mainstay of his physical life and needs. She was open and giving. Most days he couldn't wait to get home and get her writhing in crazed passion beneath him. 

Kathryn. 

Kathryn was as complex as a thousand different women all blended into a single person. All their years on Voyager, it was her complexities that intrigued him the most. He readily conceded that women of high rank, and in the Delta Quadrant, the highest ranking officer of Starfleet, made Kathryn unique. She was an alluring woman as well as a captain, and those attributes merged into an exciting being with whom he clashed, fell in love, adored. She sharpened his wits, challenged him and, he could never, never read her. What perplexed him most about her was also what drew him like a magnet to her. In that Kathryn remained darkly, achingly mysterious and it was the air of mystery, her mystique that drove him mad with want, with wanting to know what went on in her mind. 

In that, Kathryn was right. There were facets of her that he could simply never understand, that would forever remain hidden to him and it was this, ironically, that teased him into madness.

He had been edgy when Kathryn arrived and he had been the first to admit that their friendship was strained, that nothing was like it had been before. Their easy camaraderie, the light flirtatious teasing, the instinctive natural bond between them was somehow subdued. Yet he couldn't help himself when he pulled her up in his arms in a great hug, had desperately wanted to kiss her. Annika had seen the interplay but he had shrugged it off, knowing that she would understand that he had a friendship to treasure as well as a marriage to maintain. 

And when he had time to study Kathryn, he noticed her as even more detached, beautifully aloof and complex. Her skin was translucent, as if she had been asleep in a darkened room for a month with no sunshine to revive and energise her. There was a feyness about her, but also a strange, strange newness that he couldn't put his finger on, except to think that the man he'd heard in the background when he had spoken via vid-com with her had something to do with it.

He had wanted to taste Kathryn. Her body had received him and he had felt for a moment how his very soul moved into her being. In that moment, he had realised that was what he had been searching for, how he still wanted her with desperate need.

It was over before it began, yet he lost himself in her. Kathryn classically assimilated him in her heart and mind… Even as he had merged with her, his mind spiralled away from him, no longer belonging to him but to Kathryn. For that moment when they had been locked together, he felt peace such as he had never felt before. 

It was an admission as startling as it was hard to make. His soul was owned by Kathryn Janeway. But with harsh reality lay his wife, his new love, his commitment to his marriage, his responsibility. In the bright light of day, Kathryn was never going to betray herself again and he was never going to let it happen again. 

Chakotay turned finally into his wife's arms, held her very close and vowed that he would do everything to make her happy now. 

But he wondered, as he closed his eyes and felt her trembling body, why he couldn't lose his soul to her like he wanted to.

Perhaps, he decided as his body began to answer to his wife's ministering hands, it was possible to love two women entirely differently, that together, those two women would complete him, each in her unique way. They were two utterly different facets which were complementing, essential parts of what made his relationship whole. 

Annika was not enough.

And while Annika on her own could not divine the depths in him that he knew Kathryn Janeway would, it was enough for him. He felt how the deep moral responsibility washed over him as he let his wife caress him, her softness, her readiness, her love above all resurging in him as the mainstay of his life. While he felt Kathryn would always be the one who had his soul, she was gone from his life. She was moving on, and so should he. 

When his shaft sank deeply into Annika and he heard her sigh of joy and contentment, he knew that he would be loyal to her.

For now...  
******************** 

END CHAPTER 10


	11. A THOUSAND VOICES

* * *

 

 The sleeplessness was the first sign. After Kathryn left, he tried even though it was afternoon. He hadn't closed his eyes in more than forty eight hours. Kathryn had been too busy preparing to leave and hadn’t noticed anything.

 Then yesterday morning, he had taken his cello outside to the deck. The flexing of his fingers, the exercise of running them over an imaginary keyboard had felt stiffer than usual, almost arthritic. And when he began to play a few arpeggios to warm up, the notes screeched forth from the instrument, off key and strident, atonal sounds that filled the air with their uselessness. For the next hour he had forced the suppleness back into his fingers so that the notes he created were again mellow, smooth, tonal, and he had played on until he grew tired.

 He was restless. Since Kathryn's departure he hadn't been able to sit down or lie on his bed for any length of time. The prospect of abseiling the cliffs was not as pleasurable as it had been the last time the two of them had done so together. The lake beckoned in the moonlight; most nights he had spent just sitting at the water's edge but the gleaming stillness, long streaks of moonlight forming roads and highways back to the stars...impressed him no more.

 The restlessness had been growing since the first signs of spring. He couldn't concentrate on writing even a thousand words of _The Raging Moon_ but he had refused to give up and finally, he had finished almost three thousand for the day. He paced the lounge, walked jerkily to the bookshelf and with knotty fingers, caressed the spines of _War and Peace, Man in the Iron Mask_ , Akira Kurosawa's _Ikiru_ , smiling grimly to himself. _Ikiru_ meant life. The books took on a misty form, congealed into one and became all of life and all of literature, containing the saga of life and death and resurrection of the soul and the restitution of the body. He lifted _Songs of a Wayfarer_ but numbed fingers dropped the book.

He tried to bend down to pick it up and return it to its hallowed place, but even that action became a laboured movement. It lay open where it had fallen. Page two hundred and one.

 The Oracle answered in words that were clothed in the brilliance of morning, words that were full of meaning...

_I know your songs, O Wayfarer. I know that which you seek, even as the door to understanding remains closed to you. You seek signs that are not there, for those signs are in your heart._

_How then, O Oracle, am I to understand the signs?_

_Open your heart to the morning dew as it restores the life of the wilting flower..._

Ethan remembered those words, as he remembered every word in the novel, but now, the words were fading. The intangible entity was upon him and had sunk into his senses. He left the book on the floor, grunting as he turned away from it, moving in the direction of his stairs.

He cranked up the short flight of wooden steps to his bedroom, the largest room in the house for it covered the entire upper level. There he stood wide eyed, his mind again opening and beginning to infuse with images, his eyes darting round, finding photo frames with faces in them - long lost faces. Mel…Rourke…Piers…his life - years when he speared the joy through his soul with them. Mel's image receded even as his visual acuity increased. Were his mind and his sight acting independently? His bed had not been slept in for days, was the thought that registered, a singular structured string of words that remained as processes that moved only from neuron to neuron, never once breaking contact, but also never emitting from his mouth as distinct words and sound. As laboured as his movement was going up the short flight of wooden steps, so the wood echoed the halting, faltering movement back down again.

His heart registered beats - slow, dull thuds that did reaffirm he was still alive, he was still Ethan Bellamy.

 _I am Ethan Bellamy._  

That was two days ago, or twenty days, or two thousand days. He was beginning to let go of the ordered thoughts of  Ethan, former first officer of the USS Bellerophon.

Now as his fingers clutched the bow, the left hand wrestling a gentle vibrato from the strings, he noticed the skin covering the back of his hand changing. Dark veins on the outside, more dark silver, metallic veins that had begun to show, merging with his skin, replacing it, reshaping it, realigning it. He knew that the process had begun days ago, but now all processes had speeded up and in a single afternoon, Ethan Bellamy would be no more.

Like ugly portents of death, the veins grew and hardened until the notes he played were no longer notes his fingers produced. They were oddities of sound - irregular catches, discordant bits that were without order. Order was scales placed from lowest to highest notes, in keys of flats or sharps; order was arpeggios he composed most times on the spur of the moment, becoming strange little melodies of chance. Biting his lips he forced again a scale - F Sharp - fingers digging, nails scoring into the wood. Into the wood? Where was he? Something snapped. He heard a zing echoing into the light of day. A string broke. He had never broken a string before.

A sudden vision of Kathryn watching him play Fauré.

Élégie.

Lament the dead. Lament your transformation.

"No...not now. Not this year...not again..."

But they were not words that issued from his mouth. They were guttural sounds, comprised of ten thousand sounds of voices that reflected his thought. He knew he was thinking, that so far, his brain still functioned in ordered entities such as sentences, formulation of images such as Kathryn's face - smiling, her hair bobbing as she turned her head. Yet, he knew that any of these impulses he attempted to send from his brain to his hands, his fingers, his mouth, his eyes even, resulted in a cacophonic confusion that would straighten out...eventually.

Rising unsteadily to his feet, he managed to drag the cello inside. Like a limp rag doll, the instrument followed him to where he paused at his usual spot in front of the French door, in the right hand corner of the room, facing the outside world. He looked at the trees outside, their tops swaying in a breeze that had sprung up from somewhere, the sky above them clear - as clear as azure. On the floor lay _Songs of a Wayfarer_ , still open at page two hundred and one, the Words of the Oracle staring up at him.

He gave a rasping cry and turned. Not the normal turn of a human biped which placed feet at certain angles and allowed the upper body to sway naturally in the direction the feet pointed, but a robot-like turn in which the entire body swung on the axis of his feet - one single motion. Coherent human thought waned into coherence of body, of movement, of another kind of energy that responded to another order, of compliance to hidden mysteries of his mind. Now, that order impelled him to set things in motion, that which would engineer his protection.

Slowly, he made his way to the back of the cabin, to the second shed, hidden behind the shed where Kathryn's big chair had stood only days ago. He lifted his right hand. On the back of it, just behind the knuckles of index and middle fingers, were dark contusions, like the bruises of punctures, and over the whole hand, an exoskeleton had begun to grow until the hand appeared like a metal glove. The vision in his left eye sharpened exponentially and even through the door of the first shed, he saw the hidden door to which his ever growing exoskeleton carried him.

With agonising precision, he opened the door of the second shed and closed it behind him. In the darkness, he could see as well as he could during the day and his enhanced vision unerringly picked out the transponders and other metallic units on a waist high bench. Dark red lights had begun flickering as he came nearer to the consoles and when he touched them, they started whirring. He entered several codes, keyed in commands that appeared from somewhere in the hidden depths of his brain.

_It is time, Ethan Bellamy, that you heed  the cry of thousands_

_I have heeded the cry. I hear all and I hear one._

He stood erect as he finished his task, then again, as before, he swung his whole body round on the axis of his feet and began walking with measured, slow steps. He knew if he looked in a mirror now, that his hair would be gone, that his head was now covered with only bare skin.

_I have pain._

P-A-I-N  I-S  I-R-R-E-L-E-V-A-N-T

I W-I-L-L C-O-M-P-L-Y

Words and sounds and all other forms of communication of the human Ethan were jumbled, then eased like puzzle pieces into discernable shapes. Robot-like he traced his steps back from the shed to the house, through the back door, the kitchen, the lounge. Now he saw the door of Kathryn's bedroom and headed for it. Inside, his head jerked this way then that, the enhanced eye finding objects he appeared to recognise.

_I know I'm welcome in your home, Ethan. I will always be welcome._

Before his transformation, he could smell Kathryn in her room. Now there was nothing he could discern through smell. He remembered vaguely how she felt in his arms.

s-k-i-n   a-l-a-b-a-s-t-e-r

On her bedstand were two photographs.

Her mother with Phoebe.

Chakotay.

Native American.

K-A-T-H-R-Y-N  I-S  I-N  P-A-I-N

D-E-A-D  E-Y-E-S

Another guttural, incoherent sound escaped as he stretched out a metallic hand and shoved the picture from the stand. It landed on the floor and the glass shattered. When he turned, he stepped on Chakotay's face before walking out to the open French door. No sensation of cold or heat or wind. A small hesitation before he crossed the deck to reach the steps. Looking down, he saw his whole body now encased in shiny armour that was not an armour but an extension of his skin, or more precisely, his new skin. Down the steps he walked until he reached a spot about ten metres from the deck.

The man - Ethan - stretched out his hand, saw the bluish-green flash of the forcefield he had set into place and activated. He turned and traced his steps back to the lounge, but this time moved up the short flight of steps to his bedroom.

A wall. A double metal door, which slid noiselessly open at the touch of the keys.

Inside his room, he finally felt safe. A mirror. He stood there, taking in his appearance. No emotion, compressed lips, the alabaster skin of his cheek that was left unscathed by the transformation, twitched. High visual acuity. He could see through the mirror. On the other side of the mirror was the other Ethan.

No one would come. No one dared to come near him. He was protected. Shun the world, shun the universe, shun your masters, shun the Federation. Shun Kathryn...

He homed in on the small console on a stand at the end of the bed.

You are no longer Ethan Bellamy. You are an adjunct in a collective of millions.

_Commander Bellamy, you have been severed from the Collective. We may not have achieved one hundred percent success._

_Failure is irrelevant. Heal me._

_We need you for testing._

_I lost too much._

_Commander Bellamy, you are a drone in the possession of the Federation._

_I have only my own voice..._

_I have no name. My thought processes are controlled._

His hand balled into a fist and two tubules suddenly extended from the back of it, sinking into the console, pouring into it thousands of nanoprobes that would, with their distinctive tasks, comply to the Ethan-drone's command. In and out the new tubes moved, like snakes traversing the branches of trees, malevolent, silent, a deadly task ahead - kill the prey. He watched the wall change, noted how instruments transformed and grew, shaped and produced form, assimilating the natural wood of the floor beneath his feet, the wall beyond, until eventually, the probing movement stopped, like the whirring of ancient machines come to a halt.

He drew back the tubules and stepped up on the platform, turning to face outwards from the alcove. A series of lights whirred above his head. He closed his eyes.

He was home.

****************

 

"Are you sure you want to go alone, Admiral?" Ayala asked, concern in his voice.

They were back at Headquarters in her office where she was making arrangements to leave for Beaver's Lodge.

A forcefield. Her heart had hammered when Admiral Paris spoke about a forcefield. She was intensely worried about Ethan's safety, his health. He had looked very pale the last time she had seen him. She knew he was there on his property, but not communicating with her, despite several attempts to hail him. When Admiral Paris had mentioned that the forcefield erected round Beaver's Lodge carried a Borg signature, it set off the alarm bells. Who set up the forcefield, and why a Borg signature? The only former Borg in the Alpha Quadrant were Seven of Nine who was on Dorvan V in the Demilitarized Zone, and Icheb, hard at work at the Academy under the watchful tutelage of Admiral Paris.

She had no idea what to expect, but it was imperative that she had to find out what was going on.

What mystified her was that his behaviour had been no more acerbic or eccentric than Voyager's EMH. She'd had no reason to suspect him of any subversive dealings. Yet her gut feeling told her that Ethan was too refined, too principled despite his antipathy towards the Federation, to be anything but disloyal.

Admirals Nechayev, Paris, Gordon and Hays knew what was happening. Why hadn't  they warned her? Did their knowledge only extend to the forcefield? Or had they known but chosen to leave him alone?

She sensed Ethan was in trouble.

"Yes, I must go. I have reason to believe something may be wrong and my friend in danger - " 

"Then in that case, you need assistance, don't you think?" Mike insisted.

 She stared at him, her eyes narrowed as she pondered his words. He was right. She didn't know what waited for her at Beaver's Lodge and Ethan might very well be in danger.

"Fine. We'll take a shuttle. And Mike..."

"Yes, Admiral?" 

"Whatever you see will be highly classified, is that clear?" 

She had to make sure.

"One hundred percent. I'm on your side, Admiral."

She smiled.

"Thank you."

Before they left, Admiral Paris stopped by.

"I see you're ready to leave. Kathryn, why don't you wait a few days?"

"One day may be too late. I've already put off going there myself. Ethan isn't wild about his privacy being breached by anyone, Admiral. I'll have to convince him he's an emergency."

"I was hoping you'd ignore my suggestion. I'm as concerned as you are. You may be the only person to help Commander Bellamy. Our attempts in the past have been...unsuccessful."

Kathryn thought Admiral Paris hid his concern very well. He'd also answered her silent musings about their knowledge concerning what went on at Beaver's Lodge. As long as Ethan presented no threat to them, they left him alone.

"Thank you. And Admiral, whatever happens, I know I can count on the matter being treated confidentially."

"Ethan may be in need of medical attention, Kathryn."

"I know, Admiral. I've already asked Doctor Paris to be on stand by."

"Good. And good luck, Kathryn." 

Admiral Paris's eyes revealed nothing. Like most high ranking Starfleet personnel, he was adept at masking his emotions. Kathryn knew he harboured some insight into Ethan Bellamy that she was not aware of, even though she could, with all certainty, claim to be the only person on Earth who had lived in his home for any length of time. Still, it didn't rankle, for she knew that Paris, Nechayev, Hays and Gordon would keep any information about Ethan under strict security with a very high level clearance. What knowledge they had must pertain to his years as a Starfleet officer, or more specifically, the Battle of Wolf 359. She knew he had been first officer of the Bellerophon, but Ethan's words to her months ago that he'd tell her himself, still lived with her. That was the comfort.

"I'll keep you informed."

Admiral Paris nodded sombrely before he left her office. When Mike Ayala entered, it was to tell her that the shuttle was ready for take off.

Minutes later they were airborne and on their way to Oregon, which was but a short trip. The first time she had departed from Indiana not knowing where she was going, and not caring either, she had ended up in Oregon and on Ethan's doorstep. She had little recollection of that terrible day, only waking up to find Ethan's eyes on her. Those first days still remained hazy, although she knew that Ethan had done literally everything for her. She had been weak as a baby then, unable to do anything for herself.

Mike Ayala sat quietly next to her.

"You're deep in thought," she said, making conversation.

"Have you heard from Chakotay and Annika, Admiral?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"No. I don't expect to hear from them anytime soon."

"Then I guess he hasn't told you."

"Told me what?"

"They're going to have a baby, Admiral. I thought you knew."

She stilled completely, glad the shuttle was on autopilot. There was a buzzing sound about her, not from the engines of the shuttle, but in her head. She felt momentarily faint.

"A - A baby?" she asked weakly.

She'd never thought of a baby. She had never given it any thought. The knowledge smote her and created a maelstrom of pain and sorrow and regret. A flash...a baby with blue eyes and golden curls... She had always thought that any child of Chakotay's would be hers. Once, on New Earth, they had talked about it, had talked themselves out of it because of the nature of their circumstances. They couldn't raise a child in solitary confinement, with no advanced medical facilities, education, mixing with fellow students, interaction with other people... New Earth had been their love nest, special circumstances that impelled them to seek one another's warmth and create their own comfort. They had shelved the idea and when they were back on Voyager... Everything had changed. Voyager, her jealous lover, had claimed her again.

A baby for Chakotay and Seven of Nine.

The darkness descended on her like it had that first day she travelled along the Pacific Northwest. Her world crumbled and the foundation was ripped from her. She closed her eyes, and opened them. But darkness was there all the time.

A baby. A beautiful baby that would seal a love, a bond, a new resolution.

Not hers.

"Admiral?"

From  afar she heard Mike's voice, a voice that breached the darkness with rude precision, bringing her to the reality of light and reason. She pulled together all the hurt, the sorrow, the regret, and wound it into a tight little ball, consigning it to her own dark universe.

"I...didn't know."

"It distresses you. I am very sorry for causing you hurt, Admiral."

"It's okay, Mike. I wish them the very best. I'm just surprised, yes, that he hadn't told me."

"They seem overjoyed, anyway. I'm glad for them, Admiral. Please, if you will forgive my intrusion... I'm glad you didn't marry Chakotay."

She smiled wanly, then covered his hand with hers.

"You're glad, huh?"

"Yes. He's welcome to Seven of Nine. He's my friend, since before Voyager, when his father was still living on Dorvan. I love him as my friend, but he is not worthy of you..."

She sighed, glad that the light was returning, glad that she could push the darkness away. The regret came back and remained. Her heart still pulled to Chakotay, still carried a torch of which the flames, though more subdued, were still present, all too present.

"Not worthy of me?"

"I don't know how to say this, Admiral, without making Chakotay a villain, or without seeming to be too intrusive. I am intrusive. Forgive me. I should shut up."

"Oh, no, you're not going to. You just got started and you should finish what you started, Lieutenant, since you know my life so well..."

Mike looked completely mortified and blushed deep red. She sighed. His deference was overwhelming, and what he had said had already encroached too far into her personal life, according to him. She touched his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"I'm waiting, Lieutenant."

"He had his chances, Admiral. Sure enough, we all thought that you would, well, get together. But it didn't happen, and it's not because you were the captain and he the subordinate. Not, it's not because of that."

"I think we were more like fish in a bowl than we realised," she admitted ruefully.

"And that's why."

"Why what?"

"It wasn't difficult... Forgive me, Admiral.. "

"You haven't done me any harm...so far," she said, her mouth curving at the corner.

"I'll never hurt you."

"I know that. There's nothing to forgive. So why, what?"

"Chakotay needs Seven of Nine. He - he needs someone who's not complicated."

"You’re saying I'm _complicated_?"

"My guess is, Admiral, that we're on our way to someone who understands your...complexities..."

And with that Ayala shut up. Anything he knew about Ethan had only been gleaned from her own responses to her friend, her confidant, the man who had saved her life. She owed Ethan everything. If Mike Ayala saw more, then he was damned astute. He sat back, pursed his lips, sulking and looking exactly like a crewman who had told his superior what he thought of her and then waited for the consequences. She was seeing a side of him she had never seen on Voyager, primarily because she had never dealt with him on a one to one basis very often. Those occasions had been too isolated to have formed a friendship. Still, she had valued him as a Voyager crewmember and knew from Tuvok's reports that he was one of the best. She liked him, she liked his wife and she had a growing affection for their children, who Carmen had instructed, should call her 'admiral'.  It's why she found she could tolerate his intrusion.

"Do you know Ethan Bellamy?"

He refused to look at her, but kept staring at the approaching forest of  Douglas firs. 

"I know his name, that's all."

"Well, Ethan Bellamy doesn't make many friends. He considers me a friend."

_And he understands my complexities..._

Ayala sat up straight suddenly as he studied the readouts.

"We're almost at the coordinates. Is there a place where we can touch down?"

"Lieutenant..."

"Yes, Admiral?"

"It may be nothing, it may be something. But I must ask you again to keep this in the strictest confidence. I know Ethan Bellamy and he values his privacy to the point of cold obsession. Whatever we find..."

"You have my word, Admiral."

"Thank you."

When Beaver's Lodge came into view, the conn panel lit up.

"What...?" exclaimed Mike, looking at her with a question in his eyes.

"A forcefield. I was warned about the forcefield," she said as they touched down close to Ethan's little runabout. She smiled grimly as she realised they were literally on opposite sides of a fence.

"But Admiral, I notice the forcefield doesn't carry a Federation signature. Is Mr Bellamy perhaps from another world?"

"He's human, Ayala. The signature is - "

"Borg..."

"Yes. We have to be careful. Should have brought Icheb along, but the fewer people who know - "

"Understood. Are we getting out?"

"Just give me a few minutes..." she said, concentrating on the information she had uploaded to the shuttle's computer. "Thank Tuvok for me for sending the Borg decryption codes from Voyager," she said as she busied herself keying in commands to set the deactivation sequence in motion. Whatever it was Ethan had done or where he'd gotten the codes from, she had yet to unravel. One thing was certain: he had no idea that it was possible for Voyager's former captain to deactivate the forcefield.

"Okay, that's it."

"I'll follow you. I'll treat this as an away mission, Admiral. I hope you don't mind me carrying my phaser."

"I understand, though I sincerely hope we won't have to use it," she said as she opened the backdoor of the cabin, moved through the kitchen and entered the lounge.

The first thing she saw was Ethan's cello in the corner, a string broken. On the floor lay a book, and when she picked it up, saw it was _Songs of a Wayfarer_. She could hear Ayala's breathing behind her. It was good he had insisted on coming along after all. She replaced the book, slotting it from where it must have been taken out by Ethan. Then she moved to her bedroom and immediately saw the broken photo frame on the floor.

"An accident?" she heard Ayala ask.

Kathryn saw the dusty print of a boot on Chakotay's face.

"I don't think so. He is definitely here, in the house," she said as she stepped out of her bedroom and looked up the short flight of stairs that led to his room.

"Upstairs, then?"

"Sensors indicate a lifesign, but not human... That's strange..."

She snapped the tricorder closed and drew her phaser, moving carefully up the steps with Ayala close behind her. She had never ventured upstairs, for it was Ethan's domain, a private place in which he brooked no interference. It felt surreal walking here, after being so long in his house. Her heart raced as she stopped in front of a door panel, much like the sliding doors on starships. It was curious, since the rest of the cabin was built from wood. She looked at Ayala who set about decrypting the entry codes. After several minutes, the doors slid open.

Her heart raced as she stepped inside the room. Drawn instantly to the alcove, she stepped forward.  Her mouth went dry, her ears buzzed painfully as she looked at the drone. Her eyes felt hot, moist.

"Oh, my God...!"

"Admiral, this drone has been in here for two weeks..." she heard the unruffled Ayala say.

"Two weeks... That's three days after I left here...!"

The drone stood imperious, eyes closed, lips compressed, hands at his sides. The prosthetic enhanced eye and cortical node did nothing to hide the familiar planes of his face. He reminded her of the drone they'd had on Voyager. Everything, or almost everything, fell into place. Ethan's painful obsession with his hermit-like existence. Pushing away Mark and Wanda, relatives. The sickly pallor she'd noticed the day she left. The nights he never slept, when he told her he was busy writing. He was writing, but not because he couldn't sleep. He didn't need sleep. He needed regeneration. Ethan's sometimes too clinical cynicism, which bordered on complete disregard for the relevance of others' lives and interests. Why was that in such stark contrast to his brilliance as a writer? Wasn't it the mission of a writer to study and observe people and the passions that drive them?

She heard Nechayev's words, that she had sent Ethan's ship to Wolf 359, remembered that eleven thousand people, more than half of them Starfleet personnel, had died there. Nechayev, who needed this man's forgiveness to find absolution. What had happened to him then? Why was it happening now?

Unless she deactivated his regeneration mode, he wasn't going to wake up, so she stepped forward and touched his hand. There was no reaction, not even a flicker of the right eye. She remembered One on Voyager, born from a transporter malfunction and how they had watched the infant grow in the maturation chamber. He had, like B'Elanna's prototype, asked for instructions, to be filled with knowledge. Ethan looked like every drone she had ever seen, and he looked like Ethan. The white hair was gone, and now again, she realised that he had lied when he told her his hair was a genetic inheritance from his mother.

She wanted to cry for him.

"How did this drone get here? And where is Ethan Bellamy, Admiral?" Ayala asked.

"He's...right here..." she whispered in a strained voice.

"Admiral?"

Kathryn turned to face Ayala. He might have been shocked, but never let on what he felt. She had raised her children of Voyager well. Very deliberately, she turned to the console and entered the commands that would halt the regeneration process. Her heart thundered against her ribcage. She had no idea of Ethan's reaction, but she trusted him. The right eye flew open. The prosthetic eye had already scanned her. She took his hand and led him off the platform.

"Ethan…"

"I  A-M  E-T-H-A-N"

His hand was still clasped in her hand.

"Do you know who I am, Ethan?"

"Y-O-U  A-R-E  J-A-N-E-W-A-Y"

"Yes, Ethan. I am here to help you."

"H-E-L-P"

"Yes. Let me help you, Ethan…"

He pulled his hand from hers, then reached for her neck, the pose in a manner of assimilation, tubules extending, almost touching her flesh. She stood her ground, refused to move away or be shocked or afraid. She had to remember that he saved her life. Behind her she heard Ayala shuffle his feet. Her bearing told him not to move. Ayala stopped, backed off, though she knew he would be ready to react in a second if Ethan became aggressive.

She maintained eye-contact with Ethan, willed him to recognise her and understand that she meant him no harm. 

"I trust you, Kathryn," Ethan said in a voice that sounded metallic, lowering his hand as he spoke.

She gave a sigh of relief as she hit her commbadge.

"Janeway to Admiral Paris."

A second later the familiar crackling sound.

"Paris here. What have you found?"

"Admiral, we have a situation here. Advise Doctor Paris to be on standby to beam Ethan Bellamy to Starfleet Medical. It is of the utmost urgency."

"What has happened to him?"

"Ethan Bellamy has transformed into a Borg drone, Admiral. I don't think I'm telling you anything new here. Janeway out."

"That was very...Captain Janeway," she heard Ayala say.

"Lieutenant, you must oversee the transport of Voyager's EMH to Headquarters. He is currently on Jupiter Station with Doctor Zimmerman. If he asks, it's on the order of Admirals Janeway and Paris. Also, contact Commander Tuvok. Voyager has been lagging long enough at McKinley. She must be brought into Earth's orbit. I have a feeling we will be needing Voyager's Borg technology."

"I'm on it," Ayala said, jumping to attention and running off to the shuttle to work from the shuttle's computers.

Kathryn turned to face Ethan.

"I think the time has come for you to tell me your story, Ethan..." she whispered softly, not surprised when the drone was enveloped in the familiar blue shimmer of the transporter beam.

Kathryn looked about her. She was in Ethan's bedroom, his sanctuary, where no one had ever entered before. On a wall, there were several portraits. She stepped closer. A young woman with bright eyes and blonde hair, probably the wife Ethan had mentioned. The other portraits were of young boys, aged about six years and four, both with dark brown hair. Green eyes and dark brown hair… The boys looked bright and happy.

Where were they? she wondered as she prepared to join Ayala in the shuttle. She remembered Alynna Nechayev saying that Ethan's family was on the Bellerophon when the Borg attacked it. If that were so, then they must have died during that battle. Died, or they had been assimilated.

Gone…

 

***************

 END CHAPTER 11

 

 

 

 


	12. THE RAGING MOON

* * *

 

 

**Comes on the cycle of the ebbing tide**

**Whilst now the hour of my reason died**

**This madness gripping all of me too soon**

**will herald forth, the raging moon**

****

**_vanhunks_ **

 

Kathryn's hand rested on Ethan's shoulder. His exoskeleton had slowly been separated from his skin, which still had a bluish tinge to it. The first two days he had been in the cargo bay where the Borg alcoves were housed. The doctor had thought it necessary to have Ethan regenerate in a fully functional alcove with all systems running at optimum efficiency. The alcove Ethan had devised through the remaining nanoprobes in his body had been ill-equipped to deal with keeping him alive. That he had been in there almost two weeks had been a miracle, which could be credited to his sense of survival. On Voyager, the two days in Seven's alcove had returned some of his power, enough that the EMH could move him to sick bay and commence returning Ethan to his human state. Still, after  a week of treatment, and despite the absence of the prosthetic eye, other outer implants and his exoskeleton, he had not improved.

She shuddered at the thought that he would surely have died had he remained in his make-shift alcove at Beaver's Lodge, since the unit had been degrading and showing signs of malfunction.

Ethan looked ill as she had never seen him, such a stark contrast to the strength of the man. She pictured him sitting, bent in deep concentration or sublime enjoyment over his cello, creating mesmerising, haunting sounds that floated like soft clouds in the evening air. She pictured him at the dinner table when he'd spend the time watching her eat, or some mornings when she'd catch him drinking whisky. He'd raise the glass in a cryptic salute before taking another sip. Some mornings, she'd wake up to find him sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her. She was comfortable with him doing that, not surprised at all. He'd smile at her, then tell her she had fifteen minutes to get ready, they were going to abseil down the cliffs and picnic on the beach below.

She missed him. Seeing him in that Borg alcove had shocked her for a few seconds before she collected herself, realising why he had been so hard on himself, and on his family whenever they came too close. She was the closest anyone had been to him. It afforded her a rather bleak honour because of his sensibilities and the way she had come into his life. They had become friends even though most of the time, he was still so acerbic. She noticed how he had softened that stance towards her lately. To his credit, he had not expressed his anger the day she returned to Beaver's Lodge from her vacation on Dorvan, even though she knew he had sensed instantly what had happened between her and Chakotay. She smiled grimly. He was never going to like Chakotay. The dusty boot print of a Borg drone on Chakotay's photo spoke volumes. It manifested his awareness of her and the man whom she loved, manifested his own feelings towards Chakotay.

Die a natural death… How long was that going to take?

Ethan had only been awake when she had deactivated the alcove. By the time she and Ayala had arrived at Starfleet Medical, he had slumped into an unconscious state. The oxygen flow through Ethan's body had been slowed down by his transformation, which was something the EMH had been trying to correct. His skin still showed a bluish tinge as a result. Soon either Seven of Nine or Icheb might have to be called in to assist. Again, a grim reminder that might not even be necessary, since it was quite possible that they would have received signals from Ethan's neural transceiver. His primary cortical node, however, had been malfunctioning from the start.

"Mainly," the EMH started, "because over a period of ten years, it has been degrading as each year passed. Every time Commander Bellamy transformed from human to Borg and back, the cortical node has lost some of its programming and therefore, in the absence of the Collective, reduced its efficiency on a yearly basis. It's why some of the implants were not present during his latest transformation, why his nanoprobes have been sending out error-ridden instructions."

"Doctor, I've been told by Admiral Nechayev that Ethan returned to Earth as a damaged drone. I'm assuming that the Collective rejected him; indeed, perhaps he was beyond repair."

"That may be the reason for the yearly regression. I've also established, Admiral, that Commander Bellamy bears the genetic markers of a Delta Quadrant race. A race that - "

"Mutates every spring..." she added softly, as the realisation dawned on her.

"Affirmative. If Commander Bellamy wishes to remain Borg - "

"He'll die…"

"But that can be corrected, if we have either Seven of Nine or Icheb here," said the doctor. "Their nanoprobes could help restore the damaged implants and remap his DNA."

"Remaining Borg is the last thing Ethan wants, Doctor. He wants to be human again. Permanently, not just at a certain period of the year."

"I understand, Admiral. Still, in order to effect that radical a change as we have done with Seven of Nine, Commander Bellamy needs help."

"Understood. But we found him in a regeneration alcove, Doctor. Surely some repairs had been going on during the time he was there?"

"This drone – "

"Commander Bellamy."

"Fine. Commander Bellamy's system is on a downward spiral. He is a machine that is winding down. Because his cortical node malfunctioned from the outset, he is in fact, dying."

"As a Borg."

The doctor's eyes had narrowed.

"Yes. But also, his human DNA has been compromised during the process and as I've already indicated, through the degradation of the last ten years, every time he transformed."

"Do everything you can to save him, Doctor. A whole quadrant depends on his recovery."

"A whole quadrant? That is an enigmatic statement, but I'll let it go for now, Admiral. If you will please stand aside…?"

The doctor had continued working. Ethan had still not woken up and she thought privately that it was better that way. She knew him. Ethan had kept his condition a secret because he wanted no pity, because she thought he'd be ashamed of what he had become, that he never wanted anyone to see him in that state.

She hadn't realised that she had still been holding Ethan's hand. The hand had clamped tightly around her fingers and she had trouble extricating her hand from his, thinking that he might have heard them after all and was expressing an emotion through touch. Even more disconcerting had been the fact that Ethan's neuroprocessor had been a diminished version from that of the standard Borg drone. It had a failing neuro-electric field, one that had lost its power in increments of what they estimated was about ten percent on an annual basis. At the moment, only his neural transceiver would alert any Borg within a range of several light-years. With the absence of a Borg cube in the quadrant, no regeneration of damaged components by other drones could be effected, nor could Ethan run a self-diagnostic. Still, with Seven and Icheb within relative spitting distance, it was possible they might have isolated some signals.

Now, after a week, Ethan was more like the Ethan she knew. His scalp was already showing fine tufts of white hair; his face deeply creased, with his mouth drawn into what she thought might be a cynical curve. The Vulcan nurse had dressed him in Starfleet hospital wear and the blue heightened the bluish tinge of his skin. The EMH had been falling all over his holographic feet finding the best strategies to deal with a human turned drone, turned human again and whose lifesigns were failing.

"This drone is dying," declared the EMH as he snapped the tricorder close. "His human DNA is in regression for the second time."

"Doctor," Kathryn said, on a sigh, "he's not a drone. This is Ethan Bellamy. He is self-aware as a human, knows his name and has never referred to himself as anything but Ethan Bellamy. Please, don't call him a drone."

"Admiral," the EMH retorted, lifting an eyebrow, "I understand. Commander Bellamy needs an infusion of blood, preferably from a family member carrying the genetic strains of his DNA."

Earlier in the week, she had informed Mark and Wanda because they were Ethan's only relatives. She didn't want to entertain the idea that Ethan was dying, but it was necessary for them as next of kin to know what was happening. Mark seemed as unsurprised as Wanda at the news of Ethan's transformation into a drone and wanted to come immediately. At that time, they had not yet transported Ethan to Voyager's medical bay.

"That makes sense, Doctor," Kathryn responded. "I have informed his cousin. Actually, they are third cousins."

"That will be enough for me to work with."

"Her name is Wanda Johnson. You're looking for a type match."

"Exactly. I suggest you get her here as soon as possible – "

"I am here," a voice had sounded up behind them.

"Who is this - ?" the EMH asked. Through the door breezed Wanda, who had suddenly grown wings it seemed, since she had appeared so introverted when Mark had introduced her to Kathryn. Now, Kathryn's delight rippled through her as she took a step forward.

"Wanda! You came!"

But Wanda had walked immediately to the bed. Her face creased as she gazed at the face of her cousin. Kathryn thought she was going to cry. She felt like crying herself.

"Nothing could keep me away," Wanda said with conviction. "The minute we received your message, I told Mark I would be returning to Earth. I hope I'm not too late. There's no way I'm going to stand outside the loop again where Ethan's concerned. He has got to realise we're family; he has to lose some of that dourness and stop pushing everyone away. Though I can assure you, his dourness has made him interesting, in an Ethan kind of way."

His stern, aloof demeanour made him interesting? Kathryn thought Ethan the most enigmatic man she had ever met. Wanda was right about one thing. The aura of mystery surrounding him was a quality that drew people, it piqued their curiosity. He had been so obsessive about keeping his identity secret. It was clear Wanda didn't know he was Henry F. Marchand, the great author. His books had been turned into holonovels; besides the electronic versions, those who required the books were happily obliged in their requests by his publishers, who remained as tight-lipped about their elusive premier author as Ethan Bellamy was.

"Yes," Kathryn decided, "Ethan is always interesting…"

"If I can help at all," Wanda continued as if she didn't hear Kathryn, "I'd be happy to donate all my blood. He looks so ill…"

"Ah, then you've come to the right place," exclaimed the EMH. "This... _human_ here is in need of your lifeblood, Mrs Johnson."

" _Mrs Johnson_? Call me Wanda, please."

The EMH nodded and walked to the ever familiar console near the biobed and busied himself there, taking no more notice of them. Kathryn knew he was glad that Wanda had arrived, and that he was setting up the procedure for blood analyses and transfusion.

Wanda touched Ethan's cold hand, shaking her head in sympathy. Then she leaned over him and planted a light kiss on his forehead. Kathryn wondered if Ethan had ever appreciated Wanda loving him so much. He rejected all affection. Only with her had he let down his guard. She had been held in his arms, been read to by him, been bathed and fed by him, been cared for by him. There had been times she had simply lain in his arms and closed her eyes, never wanting to open them again. Many times, she woke up in the dead of night and he'd be there, pulling her into his embrace and comforting her. Other times he played for her, saying that Saint Saëns composed _The Swan_ just for her. She had butted heads with him over _The Raging Moon_ and had become familiar with his characters, bleeding, agonising, raging with them just as he  had. He'd tell her "You’re good, Kathryn. You’re good..." No one knew of that side of the man.

Wanda straightened up and glared at the doctor.

"Well, aren't you going to start immediately?" she demanded to know.

"Wanda," the doctor said, turning to face her, "the drone - Ethan - may be dying, but he's not dead and he's not going anywhere. But don't you go anywhere. I'll need you over a forty eight hour period."

"Wanda," Kathryn said evenly, "thank you for coming at such short notice."

"No problem at all, Kathryn. Ethan may not want to acknowledge us in his life, but I love him. He was there for me when I needed him and even then, he concerned himself with my problems, putting his own traumas aside."

"That's Ethan for you."

"You sound very proud of him, Kathryn. He cared for you too, as I understand."

"He made me welcome in his home. That in itself says much of him," she replied, ignoring Wanda's questioning glance.

"I always suspected that he became this way because of what happened ten years ago," Wanda continued on a sad note. "I was the only next of kin then and when I finally did get here, he had already been healed. Or, that's how it looked. The white hair was a side-effect."

"You've never been to his home in Oregon?" Kathryn asked.

"No. More's the pity. He shut everyone out of his life. Came out too infrequently. We were never really friends until that time. Admiral Paris found me. I didn't know about Ethan's fate and that of his family. After that we became a little closer, acknowledging that we had to stay in touch. Still, he remained a complete enigma and even now I can't say whether the trauma of being assimilated was responsible for that or whether he was always like that…" Wanda paused, then said softly, "He became the father I missed at my wedding. I – I'm sorry…"

"No, don't be, Wanda. I'm glad Mark is happy again. Looking back at the way things evolved, I think it was best for both of us."

Wanda gave a relieved sigh. "Mark took a very long time to get over you, you know…"

"Wanda, let's put this behind us, okay? I'm happy for both of you. One hundred percent."

"Thank you."

"I hope one day you can see Beaver's Lodge. It is the most beautiful place on Earth."

A wistful envy grew in Wanda's eyes. "Mark and I… We often talked of just barging in, but you know Ethan."

"Things will change, I'm sure," Kathryn reassured her.

"He looks so ill."

"Hopefully, this procedure should work," the EMH assured them. "The first transfusion should take a few minutes, Mrs Johnson...Wanda…"

"Thank you, Doctor. Ethan might not know it, but there are a whole lot of people around him who care about him."

Wanda's eyes were on Kathryn when she spoke.

***************

"Admiral, you are scheduled to transport to Voyager in ten minutes," Lieutenant Ayala reminded her.

She nodded, glad that Admiral Paris had appointed him as her aide. He had proved invaluable since he had taken up his duties and now he was ready to send her off to Voyager once more. It had been good having him around. She didn't have to think or worry about the mundane issues or nitty-gritty aspects of her work which he smoothed for her with so much ease.

"Thank you."

"And  Cadet Icheb is ready to join you. He has been most anxious to see Commander Bellamy. I don't know why. Why didn't you refuse his request, Admiral?"

"Because I trust Icheb. Commander Bellamy is now almost human, but he was Borg, like Icheb. Besides, if the doctor thinks it's necessary to use Icheb's nanoprobes, then the cadet will be there."

"Icheb has picked up signals from Commander Bellamy when he was fully Borg, I take it?"

"Yes," she sighed, "though they were very faint. It's why Icheb came to me. I had to tell him what was happening. I'm not ruling out the possibility that Seven of Nine may have picked up those same signals. I'm waiting to hear from her sometime..."

"Admiral, I honestly think you can rest, assured that Seven of Nine will consider all information classified, should she make her way here."

Kathryn nodded again.

"Well, I have to go. Ethan is on the mend now that he's received a series of blood transfusions, but he's not completely out of the woods yet."

"Is he still unconscious?"

She sighed again. The EMH had debated on whether to have Ethan awake during the procedures. It was probably for the best, since she thought that Ethan, when he woke up, would like to see himself normal again. That day in his alcove at his home, the Borg implants and impassive appearance had not been enough to hide what she thought was his shame at being seen in that state.

"Yes, but he'll be revived early tomorrow morning. Doctor has decided to wake him. His cousin Wanda has left, but the doctor has drawn additional units of blood from her within her limits. She threatened us both with death if we didn't notify her immediately of his recovery. She's currently with her husband on Torthran III."

"Then that is good. Carmen and the boys will enjoy the weekend at your home. I must thank you again..."

"Lieutenant, that's no problem. I'll be based at Beaver's Lodge for the next few months, and it's good to have a family in the house again. Just tell the boys the studio is off limits, okay?"

"Okay. Ready to go?"

"Oh, yes," she said, her heart suddenly thumping more wildly at the thought that Ethan would be awakened  today.

She left her office and hurried to the transporter pads where Icheb was waiting. The young cadet smiled as she approached him.

"Admiral Paris has kindly agreed to let me accompany you, Admiral Janeway," Icheb said.

Of course Admiral Paris would. Icheb had been granted a waiver to start his second year and was already way ahead, though not as far as James Rollins, son of Magnus Rollins. The two young men had become firm friends.

"Then he has faith in you that you'll play the catch-up game quickly."

"I have already finished one paper."

That didn't surprise her. Icheb had enhanced capabilities, like Seven of Nine, but the young man was not given to boasting about it. It fact, she had learned from Owen Paris that he played it down.

"Good for you, Cadet. Ready?"

Icheb smiled.

"I am. I desire very much to be of service, Admiral Janeway."

Kathryn glowed under the warm look of the young ex-Borg. Here in the Alpha Quadrant,  she was his mother, and the former crew of Voyager his only family. Sighing, she hit her commbadge.

"Janeway to Voyager. Two to beam up."

**********

_"Daddy, do people go crazy when the moon is full?"_

He remembered the full moon from the last time he had any sense of being Ethan Bellamy, in his own skin, in his own head, master of his own destiny. He remembered that full moon, now light-years away in his memory, flitting hesitantly, then confidently, an arrogance of its power over the mind and the body and the soul and Earth's waters ingrained. He remembered it moving with repulsive pleasure at exercising its will over humanity's needs until the giant, yellow-orange disc vanished from sight behind the firs. Not for him the knowledge that Earth's moon was populated and colonized. It still controlled her waters.

The ebb. The flow. The peaks. The troughs. The highs. The lows. Crime. Punishment. Guilt. Absolution.

The question, so innocently asked by a child, barely six, whose eyes mirrored his own.

The moon, my child, controls the Earth's waters and warns us not to venture too far. Where have you learned of people going mad, son?

_From you, Daddy! Silly Daddy! You told me so yourself. Are you a storyteller?_

I hope so.

Songs of a wayfarer...

My distances are closing in, my vortex narrowing to confluences where I, in utter revulsion, refuse to go. Use your power, Bellamy, control your thoughts and focus them on moving away from the eye of the dark moon's wrath. Sheath your anger now and cover it with your sensibilities, your power to wake from the deadly moon dances. Peel away your fear and reveal your own depths; colour them with the paints of war and do battle with her, to release you forever into the arms of the Sun, the Light of Enlightenment, the Great Openness to which you know you belong.

Feel her grace upon you, feel a soft hand in yours and open your eyes to the Light, for she is there, waiting, waiting, waiting...

Your Other Self is no more. Descend into the pit of Hell and vanish there forever in time's great game of death.

His eyes burned, aching with the weight of his eyelids on them, bearing down on his defences, his strength to engage them in his own private war for victory. Rise, Knight of the Sun. Live with me in the light.

"Open your eyes now, Ethan..."

A voice. A woman's voice. Her voice. Was it the Voice of the Light? The voice that raged with him against the moon's wrath? A memory, a trickle to his conscious mind, of a morning, the whisky...reminded him of her. The same voice, full of complex textures, yet blissfully real as it descended from the heights, drifting through the fog to him, so that the sound of her words fell upon his face, his lips, his hands…. It was the balm, a cooling balm that quietly healed and revitalised his soul so that he could not, in all of heaven's creation, ignore the soft urgency of it.

He tried to speak, but his lips were parched, tenaciously clinging together to prevent his rampant thoughts coming to order and responding. He closed his fingers around her hand, holding on to it like a man drowning, or dying of thirst when that hand became the guide to a cool brook. From his very depths, he cried silently to be connected to the Light, the Sun of the Forevermore. No words came from his mouth and so, in abject pain, the heavy eyelids tore away, took their burden and like a curtain over the arch of the playing area, revealed his eyes and gave them back to the world.

He blinked slowly, several times. It was quiet, and the light fell into the silence; his eyes adjusted to the new dimness but even so, objects were blurred, bobbing precariously before they defined themselves as the circular light above him, the ceiling of what he sensed must be a starship. Unmistakeable _elsewhereness_ of his person. He frowned at that.

Starship? Had he taken leave of his senses? Another object.

A face. Clear at last as his eyes fixed on it like someone who had trekked through an arid land with no hope of finding water. A familiar face, the welcome sight of an oasis – a resting place… He moved his lips, found with joy that he could slip his tongue out and moisten them. Several times he performed the action until at last he could make an attempt to speak.

Kathryn's face hovered above his own. She looked...worried, yet a smile broke through the concern, a watery smile that reached him.

"Kathryn..."

"Welcome back, Ethan."

"I raged with the moon and conquered its fire..."

"I know. You are whole again."

"Whole again?"

"I'll explain everything. You must rest now."

"No…tell me…"

"Ethan, you have been transformed to your human state. You will never be Borg again…"

He let the words sink in. Ten years. Every year, he feared most his other being, his collective invisibility, hearing a thousand voices that spoke as one, to him… Every fibre in his body screamed the denial of implants, of  nanoprobes racing through him, like vultures attacking every corner, assimilating his mind, his most precious and private emotions… Like clockwork, his body betrayed him every year, a process unstoppable, inevitable, forcing him into hating mankind, hating the creation that was Ethan Bellamy, Borg, the revulsion of Ethan Bellamy, human.

Then he found her. Sad eyes, eyes dark with concern, with the old, old memories and pain of her past, her tormented present. And she brought him back. A lifeline as necessary as he had once been to her.

"Where am I?" he asked, unable to let go of the light, wanting to recede again into darkness, his own voice still sounding like an old man's - a croak, a whisper.

"On Voyager," she replied, squeezing his hand, kissing the back of it.

He saw his hand, couldn't pull his gaze away from it. Where were the blue metallic veins? Was he no longer a drone? For the first time, a sensation… The voices were gone. The Noise that clamoured in his head and kept him nailed to a Cross…gone. Now he heard only his own voice and Kathryn's voice.

"Your Voyager? In its sickbay? Are we alone here?"

"I wanted to be here alone with you when you opened your eyes, Ethan."

"Whole again?" he repeated his question of earlier.

"Forever in the light of humanity."

Did darkness descend on him again? he wondered, that thought receding as he realised Kathryn had moved closer, filling his light, becoming a welcoming cool oasis as her lips touched his forehead.

An image. A beavers splashing in the stream, unfettered, slick, smooth trajectory as it slid over an obstacle in the water. Kathryn's bright laugh that sounded in the clear, icy air of Oregon.

When she leaned back, she smiled, a smile that was tender, yet…sad. Her eyes were kind. He wanted to comfort her. That urge entered his mind so quietly that he knew it must always have been there. He brought her hand closer and pressed it against his mouth. Then he released her hand, his fingers reluctant to disengage, lose contact with her, with what felt so remarkably real. He explored his skin, touched his scalp, felt the first stirrings of hair growing again.

"You once told me your white hair was genetic..."

"I lied about my mother."

"I saw pictures of your sons," she said quietly.

He closed his eyes, saw Rourke and Piers with their rich brown hair slightly darker than Kathryn's. His fingers slid away from his scalp. Kathryn's hand covered his, enclosed it in the reassurance of life, regained. She had been in his room. She had seen him in his alcove, that prison that controlled his life every spring.

"You saw me naked..."

"I saw a man who needed me. Take it or leave it."

He remained silent for a long time, mulling over her words, registering the time when he had uttered the same sentiment to her. She had been embarrassed then that she had been stripped, so physically and emotionally vulnerable.

"I was a drone, Kathryn. A Borg. Three of Five in the hierarchy of the hive mind. You cannot know what - "

How could anyone understand? His orders…infiltrate the Federation, seek out its weaknesses… The countermanding of Starfleet, Nechayev ordering him to divulge the vulnerabilities of the Borg. The Borg refusing to repair him, sending him back to Earth… The Federation experimenting until he died… Too many, the confusion, the hatred afterwards…

"I understand, Ethan. I once experienced the thoughts of the Collective."

"I should have died."

"Then your work would have been a loss to the Federation."

"It means nothing. I lost everything."

"So have I..."

A tear rolled down her cheek. He brushed it away with his hand, noticing how clear his hand looked, how healthy his flesh. He was Ethan Bellamy again, fully human. Her sadness tore into him; the sensation surprised him.

"Forgive me."

"I'm just glad to have you back."

"I was going to assimilate you. How can you be glad?"

"Yet, you stopped. That alone was evidence that Ethan Bellamy still remained in control of his own mind."

He remembered now. Desperately he had tried not to send his nanoprobes into her body. He could never do that to her and make her suffer his fate. He had suffered the sorrow of the universe and carried his guilt like a great iron ball chained to his feet to remind him that he had transgressed. Ten years was too short to pay penance for his deeds.

It would have been so easy. His hand had been poised to strike, to add Kathryn's distinctiveness to his own and enhance her in that way. He'd lost his individuality. He couldn't see her losing hers. The price was too great

And so was his remorse.

"Ethan...?"

"I said I would tell you my story one day. You deserve to hear it, Kathryn."

"Ethan, it's not n - "

"It is. It is very necessary. You don't know how necessary..."

"Then you give me a great honour..."

**************

 END CHAPTER 12


	13. WOLF 359

* * *

 

**WOLF 359**

**The year: 2367**

He couldn't have taken leave at a worse time. The shuttle had hardly been one light-year away when Mel hailed him on a subspace band. She had looked pinched, harassed. It was hard to believe that she had been an exobiologist before they married. She had given up her work to raise their two sons, insisting that at least one parent be with them round the clock.

He loved Mel, had been attracted to her beauty, her feyness, which at times left him slightly perplexed and astonished. But he had noticed a subtle change about her, especially after Rourke’s birth, when she had become more dependant, more hanging on for dear life to her husband. She had ambition. Not for herself, but for him. It had been a bone of contention even before they married, but then it had been tempered by his love for her and the way she bowled him over so completely, the subtlety of her manipulation incongruent with the air of helplessness about her. Afterwards, she pushed him gently, if insidiously, to aim for Lieutenant-Commander, then later for full commander.

"I'd like to see you as a captain of a Starfleet vessel, Ethan. You are fully capable of commanding a Constitution class vessel. Any vessel for that matter."

Of course he was capable.

To her, it had seemed the more prestigious the vessel the better. The Enterprise had been mentioned at times but he had blithely ignored those hints. He had been pushed through Starfleet by over-zealous parents, although their aspirations had been moderated by his grandfather who taught him to love music, to play the cello, to give vent to his creative energies. Attending Julliard had been a concession his parents made, the condition being that he do the four year stint at Starfleet Academy. His mother: "We have to have another Captain Bellamy in the family."

And Mel had continued his parents' misplaced ambitions for him, though from her he had tolerated it mainly because he had been too blindly in love.

Now he looked at Mel on the vid-com, wondering if love could disintegrate gradually after consuming him so completely. He had thought the sun and the moon shone from her. She exuded charm, energy, the drive to push him and he had complied, until his natural graces began to reassert themselves. Now he no longer listened to Mel who was still driving him to advance in Starfleet. He had endured her silences, her teary recriminations of his lack of ambition to shine as a Starfleet officer. He had employed his energies in creating stories, tales of heroes who searched for more than just a place in history, but who struggled to find intangibles - the essence of their beings, the search for the self, desires, an elusive entity that could see deep into their souls.. He could derive pleasure in such quests, engaging in the holy war of needing to be understood.

And for once, as if his brain had been listening to his heart, as if heart and soul had finally merged as one, he had found the outpouring of creation with total, breathless euphoria. It freed him, gave Ethan Bellamy back to him. His muses - Euterpe, Melpomene and Calliope - were in synch, gloriously spending hours in his company, inspiring, cajoling, ordering him to work even as his children were in his way or Mel intruded too often. He had been fired; the more he created, flinging off the shackles of intrusion and envy and resentment, the more driven he had become. He began writing again, poetry mainly, then later short stories, and all the while, he had kept up practicing and playing his beloved cello. Marriage, Starfleet, commitment as a father had all put paid to a career in music, of becoming a concert cellist. Now he could let himself go, infuse himself with the works of Elgar, Fauré, Haydn…

Before he left the Bellerophon, Mel had wanted reassurance that he wouldn't leave them. He sighed as he thought about that civil exchange of words. Had his attitude been so transparent? He lived for his sons, despite the fact that she claimed he didn't spend enough time with them. But children sought out children and the boys were quite happy running off to the schoolroom on the ship to interact with the other children. Rourke had holodeck privileges to run the Flotter and Treevis programmes, and many times he and Mel had to rescue the boys from the holodeck when they flooded it or got into scrapes with a lanky tree shoot that snapped back at them. No, he couldn't dream of ever leaving them. They were his, part of what he and Mel had created together, blood of his blood.

"I'll never leave you, Mel. You and the boys are all I have..."

"That is not true, and you know it. You have your music and you write. What good is that for us?"

What good, indeed? It was his life. He breathed through music, breathed through the written word. Mel was unable to grasp that, to understand that he could be driven in ways other than just being a Starfleet officer, a husband and father. At first she was intrigued, but later, the strains of Elgar and Debussy and Haydn and Fauré grated on her. He couldn't discuss his poetry and prose with her. Many times he burned, yearning to talk about characters, story lines, a theme that bothered him, premises. Using another as soundboard would have been useful, leaving him enervated at the end. Mel... She just wasn't interested. He had been naïve to think that she would share his enthusiasm, understand his drive, would even offer useful and constructive criticism.

He was drying up, with little hope of receiving nourishment through discussion with others. And so he began talking with Neil, his captain, who at least understood his drive. Many evenings when going off duty, he'd seek out the captain and they'd talk. Anything from the great classics to the great composers and modern twenty fourth century art and literature.

Yes, he was driven.

Now, Mel looked harried as she gazed at him.

"Mel...why - ?

"Piers is ill, Ethan. I've taken him to the medical bay and the doctor wants to run more extensive scans."

She sounded peevish, so incongruous with her former luscious energy and forthrightness.

"What is wrong with Piers?" he asked, concerned.

"Well, he must have eaten something that didn't agree with him. He was nauseous. The doctor thinks it’s the mushrooms of Almor Province on  Pordaria... We picked some there, remember?"

That had been days ago when the Bellerophon dropped off two hundred colonists there. The children had eaten of the strangely sweet tasting mushrooms during the short stay on Pordaria. But they had been deemed safe to eat by the ship's dietician.

"Is he alright now?"

He pictured three year old Piers, a green-eyed little terror who outran every other three year old on the ship.

"Yes, he's better now, but you should have been here..." Mel said, her voice sounding thin and weak and subtly conniving.

He sighed. "I'll be back a day early. Tell Piers I have a new story for him, okay?"

A stricken look crossed her features. Then she closed communication abruptly, leaving him wondering whether Piers was really ill and whether it was as bad as Mel made it out to be. They had two well-adjusted boys who had inherited his green eyes. Rourke took after him. Rourke who was so sensitive, who had a great sense of empathy even for a child of only six. The children were his life. They kept him alive, kept him on his toes, and strangely, when he was busy writing, always sensed that they shouldn't bother him, although he never minded that they did. It was Mel who overwhelmed them with her tendency to the dramatic whenever they were sick or when they came near him while he was busy preparing notes.

"You are not to bother Daddy, Rourke..."

"Piers, no, come here, let Mommy tell you a story..."

He had taken the few days to start on his novel. His head burst with plot points, characters, themes, short bursts of dialogue for his _Songs of a Wayfarer_. Too many distractions made working with any kind of fluidity almost impossible. Getting up in the middle of the night always resulted in Mel waking too, and calling him to return to bed.

He had loved her when he married her. She wanted a Starfleet captain. He just wanted to write and play his cello and raise his sons. Why, with Mel around, wasn't there enough time to do all of those? Mel had never liked his music, though in fairness, she tolerated it good-naturedly in the few months they courted. But she switched off when he played. He couldn't blame her. Not many were interested in Earth's composers and their works. Playing the cello, coaxing the mellowed sounds from its strings calmed him, gave him some centring and alas, excluded Mel. The boys took it in their stride, and Rourke had shown early ability when he started teaching his elder son.

Ethan sighed. The work was progressing. Being alone afforded him the time, the climate in which to let his mind flourish with the scope of the novel. Now he could exclude everyone and concentrate, focus, construct sentences, turn over in his mind all manner of expressions he needed to flow from his brain to the written word. Somehow, he liked the physical typing of his text because it gave him order, prevented him from running too far ahead of himself and losing the thread of his ideas. Other times he simply vocalised, using the PADD, and later converted it into the formatting of his text. He thrived, as he was doing now, on the thrill of developing his plot, as full of energy as anything he had tried before. Then, looking back at the text, reading the drafts, which left him surprised and somehow perplexed at the result. Mostly, he  was surprised, looking at what he had written with a sense of disbelief.

All he needed was time. Captain Brannigan had given him the time. He had been due for a six day leave and because they were so far away from Earth, he had elected to spend it on the shuttle. Only a real emergency or a direct order from his commanding officer to return to the Bellerophon would bring him back before he had spent the precious days of leave.

His vid-com beeped, timeously with the thought of Captain Brannigan hailing him back to the ship. A face stared wide-eyed at him. One front tooth was missing.

"Rourke?"

"Hi, Daddy!"

"Rourke, didn't I tell you not to - "

"I know, Daddy, but Daddy, Mama said I could hail you. I played the cello for Captain Brannigan in the holodeck! Pablo Casals was there, Daddy. You play just like Pablo Casals, Daddy. Captain Brannigan said I will be just like you one day. I love the cello, Daddy!"

His heart wanted to burst with pride.

"That's very sweet of Captain Brannigan to say so. Now what else did Captain Brannigan say?"

"He said - he said - he said - "

Rourke looked flustered. He wanted to tell the boy to take a deep breath before he spoke again.

The next moment, another head popped on the screen, pushing Rourke out of the way. Ethan laughed, the relief of it coursing through his body. He had completed most of his schedule. He only had his cello for company now. Why not chat with his boys?

"He said I'm a pumpkin, Daddy!"

"Pablo Casals?"

"No, Captain Brannigan said so, silly!"

Piers. Open-faced, free of the ills of the world and looking healthier than he had ever seen his little boy. Why did Mel have to exaggerate so?

"He said," Rourke followed placidly this time, having managed to control his breathing, "that I will go very far."

"But Mama said Rourke must go to - to Starfleet and become a captain, Daddy!"

"Piers, it's too soon for Rourke to go anywhere except to school right now. Besides, he may not want to go to Starfleet or be a captain one day, okay?"

"And me, Daddy? Me? Me?"

"Whatever you want to do one day, pumpkin."

"Pumpkin! I'm Piers, Daddy!"

"Of course. How could I forget?"

After a few minutes in which the boys chatted animatedly with him, Mel appeared, shooing them off somewhere.

"Mel, what - ?"

"I love you, Ethan. I'm sorry if I don't understand your work. I tried, you know..."

"Mel, honey, I'm coming back to the ship tomorrow. I just have to wrap up a few things. The boys are looking well, thanks to you. Don't worry so, okay?"

Mel smiled, a tragic smile.

"I've made a decision, Ethan."

Something stabbed at him, cutting deep into his flesh. Why did he feel as if Doom was coming, riding on a black horse towards him to rob him of something precious? Why did the angels and muses and all good things suddenly move to the edge of a precipice to hover tantalisingly there? All thought, all fear, all future reckonings came together into a knot and settled in his heart where it thudded painfully against his ribcage.

"Mel?"

He could feel the blood draining from his face.

"I'm taking the boys with me. We'll disembark with colonists on Eridirian. You know I have family there. We'll be fine."

"Mel, I need my children. You're not taking them from me!"

"Just for a few months - "

"Rourke is in school, for heaven's sake," he muttered angrily, surprised at his outburst.

He didn't want to lose his boys. He didn't want to lose his wife. In his own way, he still loved her; he needed her. Whatever feelings he had left for her, he wanted to give in full measure.

"I'll see you tomorrow..."

"Mel!"

The next moment, he was staring at the Federation insignia. He fumed about in the shuttle. On an impulse, he set the co-ordinates for the current position of the Bellerophon and engaged autopilot. Then he headed for the cello in the aft section, glad that he had brought it with him. He sat down and plucked into Boccherini like a man possessed. He saw his children playing in their bedroom with their toys. Rourke reading a book, Piers hugging his precious blanket to him while he sat staring at the Montaigne Blocks, his favourite toy outside the holodeck. He saw himself as he read stories to them, sometimes old Earth fairy tales, or tales of great Klingon battles, or stories he had written himself. He saw the boys as he admonished them for flooding the holodeck, both staring at him with their innocent eyes. Innocent green eyes. He saw them as they slept, the troubles of the world so far away, blissful in their sleep, Piers with his thumb firmly in his mouth.

For an hour, he played until he felt all his anger had dissipated. Mel had him over a barrel. He couldn't blame her. She sensed how he must have disengaged during their lovemaking at times. Did she sense too that he didn't love her anymore, even though he assured her of his constancy? Lately, she had become suspicious, accusing him of spending time in a female officer's company, always asking, always wanting to be reassured of his love for her. He'd spend the evening comforting her and then they'd make love, their passion flaring like it had in the first heady year of their marriage.

As soon as he got back to the ship, he was going to woo her all over again, he decided. Make her feel extra special, loved, wanted; spend as much time with her as he could. He was going to assure her of his love, his constancy, be there for her and the boys always. He was going to spend all his off duty hours just paying her compliments. His heart yearned suddenly for them, for home, for just seeing the joy on their faces when he returned. He yearned to touch Mélisande - he always thought she had been beautifully named – touch her hair, her cheeks, see the dark clouds shift away and out of her eyes. He yearned to play chess with her, to sit in her company again and just talk.

That they were travelling with him to the Codarion Sector had been a concession made by Captain Brannigan so that they could spend their vacation with family on Eridirian. It was nearing the end of the school semester and Mel had wanted a break, provided he could be with them for a few days at least with her family. He had no family to speak of, only a few distant cousins with whom he never really communicated. Wanda sent him birthday messages sometimes, but more than that? Mel's family was his.

The moment he had resolved to be more constant to Mel than he had ever been, he felt renewed. He felt awed that she was the mother of their children. He had cried twice in his adult life, and that had been when his sons were born. His own parents had died on Almor IV years ago, when he had still been at the Academy, and he had been told then to be strong. He was strong, and even though he had felt like quitting Starfleet Academy right away, he stayed on, to honour their memory as Starfleet officers and to honour their dream for him. And while he had been fifth generation Starfleet, music and literature had flowed like a silver thread through ten generations of Bellamys. His cello was handed down six generations, crafted by the brilliant Johann Kahlmeyer in a time when mass production was the preferred mode. Even today, there were hand crafters around, but his Kahlmeyer had already been ensured of an owner in Rourke, who displayed unusually strong tendencies to play this instrument.

The music changed as he shifted effortlessly from the charged Boccherini to the Debussy reverie. His mind was clearer now. His family needed him and he needed his family. That was the bottom line. All other personal desires had to take a back seat.

When his comm panel flashed, he realised that someone had been trying to hail him. He placed the bow carefully down, and moved to the conn.

"Neil?" he asked as he saw the face of Captain Brannigan on the viewscreen.

"Commander Bellamy, I must ask you to break your leave and return to the Bellerophon immediately."

"Is anything wrong, Captain? My children? Mel?"

"No, they are fine. But we have received a communiqué from Headquarters to rendezvous with the USS Melbourne. The Melbourne is preparing to engage in hostilities with an alien vessel."

"Attack? Neil, what is happening?"

"It's a Borg vessel, Commander.  I suggest you hurry back. The Bellerophon is already on its way to Wolf 359."

"Captain, the Bellerophon is not a combat vessel. We're carrying civilians…"

"I'm aware of that. But it's an order from Admiral Nechayev."

"Is there any way of transferring those civilians to nearby worlds or other vessels?"

Captain Brannigan's lips pursed.

"I tried to tell Nechayev that, but she's adamant we leave on the instant. Anyway, there is no time. We're too far away from any homeworld to make it there and back in time to join the Melbourne. They've captured Picard. We have to go, Ethan. I expect you back on duty at 0400."

"Aye, Captain."

************************

 Federation hubris.

Embedded within its lofty ideals and rules of preservation of life before all else, the undertaking of assistance to troubled worlds, the enormous power within its ranks and the rate of growth of its power base, it also invited intense criticism. Criticism often levelled at the immense hubris and arrogance that it would forever be invincible to outside forces and infiltration of the Enemy. With what arrogance could it assume at times that it needed to be the saviour of nations, and with what self-importance could it assume that engagement in war would lead to the instant annihilation of the enemy?

The Borg was a formidable and feared adversary. They assimilated their helpless victims to be forever without identity except as a number in a hierarchy or simply a drone with only one mind – that of the Hive. He had read enough of the Borg to know that five ships were not going to be enough to contain one cube.

Ethan Bellamy had thought about this when he had routinely checked the shuttle's computers for information on the Borg. While reading the damning evidence, which to Starfleet had been seen as mildly annoying that they had to deal with another alien force, this time from the Delta Quadrant, his disquiet was increasing by the minute as he made his way to the coordinates of the Bellerophon. Neil had been quick, succinct in his order that he return, and that was more than enough evidence that they were a facing a formidable foe. A Borg vessel in the area of Wolf 359 with Captain Picard assimilated made the Borg invincible and laid bare every single strategy Starfleet had for combating the foe. Would they recapture Picard? Turn him into a human again? Was that possible?

While the other vessels were war ships, the Bellerophon was a transport vessel, carrying hundreds of colonists to other worlds. His heart already in his throat, he thought of Mel and the children, of all the other families on his vessel.  He was Starfleet, trained to be absolutely disciplined even in the face of extreme personal trauma. In the midst of battle, there was no time to think except to outwit the enemy and pursue the safest course of action for the civilians on board. Whatever they suffered through pain of loss or injuries or severe psychological trauma, counselling could be given afterwards.

He was trained to combat although every nerve in his body was screaming that it was wrong to engage the Bellerophon, which brought him to the conclusion, however unpalatable it was to digest, that this was bigger than the Federation had anticipated.

His comm panel lit, and when he keyed in the commands for visual, it was to see Neil Brannigan's worried face.

"Commander, we are so close to the action that it's impossible to resettle our passengers first. Every effort will be made to ensure their safety, but the Exeter has been destroyed."

"What?!"

"Before that, the ship was boarded by hundreds of Borg drones, now there's only debris."

"Are you saying…?!"

"We're at war, Commander. Hurry here."

Then the screen went blank and Ethan stared dumbfounded at it before heading in the direction of Wolf 359.

 

**************

 

**_Eternal Father, strong to save,_ **

**_Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,_ **

**_Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep_ **

**_Its own appointed limits keep,_ **

**_O hear us when we cry to Thee_ **

**_For those in peril on the sea._ **

*

What debris could fill the heavens so? What ravaged crafts drift aimlessly past the portals to the stars? What strange music accompanied intrepid vessels to their doom?  What fantastical ship, by its very dimensions overshadowing and overpowering the pride of the Federation, could inflict such devastation in the skies? Indeed, what utter destruction, what cosmic waste of drifting debris, proud vessels bearing the badge of courage upon their bows, could appear darkly, starkly, etched in their very misery, so hauntingly beautiful in their dying moments?

Ethan Bellamy, first officer of the Bellerophon, brought his shuttle around, like a spectre intruding on the carnage before it in silent awe, in grave admiration of the ugly beauty before him. He stared at his viewscreen, saw the bridge of his ship, the debris, the face of his captain in the seconds before a Borg drone dragged him away from his command centre.

"Bellamy! Leave now!" came Captain Brannigan's order, the words choking into the familiar buzz as if ten men spoke at once.

"I must disobey your order. Disobey your order! Captain!"

"Leave. Leave!"

But his brain, master creation of a higher power, refused to comply as he looked at the battle scene before him. Four ships lay destroyed, a fifth in the process of disintegrating into debris. Faces scarred, faces filled with horror, faces that took on the images of Mélisande, of Rourke, of Piers. He saw his Captain's form, one that had melted into shocking metal, enclosed into a new skin, of assimilation into a new being, one that adapted, complied, controlled by a single head, vocalising the thoughts of millions. He was Captain Brannigan and he was a mindless number co-opted into the Collective.

Slowly, in motion arrested and played back in unbearable rhythm, the sounds of phaser banks and photon torpedoes exploded in the eerie accompaniment to the dance of the derelicts with the cube hovering over them all - Yamaguchi, Saratoga, Exeter, Melbourne.

Bellerophon.

"Mélisande!"

**************

Once looking back, he saw his cello in the aft section of the shuttle, a fleeting moment in which the image of the lonely instrument remained etched in his memory as he began entering commands at the conn.

A heavy strafing caused the shuttle to veer dangerously to its starboard side. Ethan's brain became a command centre with only a few instructions necessary to act. All else around him was confusion, a growing darkness in which light bore through the thick misty tunnels.

Mélisande. Rourke. Piers. Brannigan, turned Borg.

One more look. Cello. The sheet music scattered on the floor.

Fauré.

Élegié. Song of the dead. For the dead.

Heart of my remembrance.

Did he hear himself calling her name again? Did he hear himself call out the names of his sons?

Mélisande!

Ready. Transport. Leave your cello. Let the shuttle limp like a lame duck, injured innocent in the war zone, civilians, innocent bystanders, collateral damage.

In the way! In the Way! Die, innocents of this unequal battle.

His chest burned, a fire that had grown inside him, ignited by the exploding photon torpedoes and phaser banks of the Yamaguchi, the Melbourne, the Saratoga, the Exeter… The fire raged through him, consumed him whole, swallowed his senses and left only one thing, one thought, one instinct.

Protect.

All around him movement. Did he enter the coordinates incorrectly? Why was he running like flames that rushed over dry landscape and destroyed everything in its path? Had he entered the corridor from the turbolifts?

He saw them and he didn't see them. They registered only as a feared foe on the periphery of the conscious mind, a mind dimmed by fire, by horror, by the unbearable need to reach those most beloved, most tender issue, green eyed boys too young to understand the world around them, too young to comprehend why men go to war, too young to recognize evil in its most monstrous form. He passed officers no longer officers of the Federation, but staccato-like walking drones, the final vestiges of red, of teal, of gold melting forever into obscurity and assimilated into nothingness.

They were his friends. They were his colleagues.

He tried to ignore the screams.

That was what pierced his senses like sharp daggers dipped in fire.

The screaming.

Hundreds of voices that cried for help.

Why did the offensive drones ignore him? Didn't he pose a direct threat to them? Why did they walk past as if they didn’t see him? Why could he pass men and women in various stages of assimilation, their exoskeletons slowly transforming them from officers to offal and not be attacked by a drone? Why? Did the gods save him to save something? Did they?

_Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!!_

Voices! Out of the hundreds dying, crying, assimilated, consumed, he heard them.

He clawed at his chest, tried to break open and let the fire burst from him, to free him from the pain he knew even then, he would bear with him forever. The Bellerophon was on fire. Everywhere were flames licking at the bulkheads, licking at dying crewmen and passengers, licking at those slowly turning into metal.  Now the sinister figures of drones began marshalling their bounty - changed robots who followed without challenge - and one by one they disappeared, dematerialised only to appear on the Borg ship.

W-E- A-R-E  T-H-E- B-O-R-G

Daddy! Ethan! Help!

How did he get to deck 4 cabin 3C? How? How had turbolift doors opened and closed and given him opportunity to run without stopping, without being stopped?

"Mélisande! Rourke! Piers!"

They were still inside!

The doors couldn't open.

"No!" came his anguished cry as he forced them open, bore with his whole weight against them. But the doors were glowing hot. He ignored the acrid smell of his flesh as his palms scorched.

Then finally, the doors opened.

He saw them instantly. They sat huddled in a corner, their faces stark with fear. His eyes glazed. He saw a form running towards him.

Mélisande, her face contorted with fear.

"Ethan!"

"Melly, we must get away - "

"Behind you, Ethan!"

The phaser fire tore a hole through his thigh, ripped into his lungs. He swayed on his feet, his flesh torn hands already holding his own phaser which appeared to have merged with his skin. The drones were behind him. He was not aware of any pain, but he knew there must be as Piers lunged and clamped his small arms round his bloodied leg. Rourke screamed as he tried to hold on to Piers.

Mel's fear receded from her face, replaced by resolve, a decision made.

"Now, Ethan!"

He swung round, the split seconds in which the next few events occurred billowing into minutes, a vacuum in which time was slowed down and in which he saw his own actions and the movements of those around him analysed frame by frame... .

A drone walked purposefully to Mel, the hand extended in readiness to assimilate her. Mel screamed. Her screams filled the cabin. The boys ran back to her and clamped their small hands onto her legs. Ethan sagged to his knees. Then he heard no more sounds, although in his dazed mind he knew Mel's screams continued. She was telling him, instructing, ordering him…

_"Do it now, Ethan!"_

I can't, Melly. Don't ask it of me…

_I will be Borg and you will be Borg and our children will become Borg. We will lose our memory of them and we will no longer know them._

_It is not our destiny, my beloved Ethan. It is not our destiny._

Not our destiny...

He felt the first stirring of metal rush through his body, yet he still had control of his mind, however dull and dazed it was. Mel held her sons to her. The drone hovered over them, ready to strike, ready to take them away. Another drone stood ready to pull the boys from her grasp. In the stricken void of extreme noise, her voice cried to him and he heard his own in answer.

"I can't...!"

Yet in the screaming silence, it was only their mouths that moved, the fear etched on the faces of their sons, their movements slowed down in time suspended, in which he could separate each frame of fear and commit it to his memory.

Fear the darkness, Ethan Bellamy. Fear your next act, Ethan Bellamy, for you know what is asked of you. Your ship has died and all who dwelled in her have been killed or taken away.

You ask the impossible, Melly!

I ask that you save our lives, by doing what you must do.

He saw the tubes puncture Mel's neck, saw the boys pulled away from her. Their mouths were gaping holes, their tears spilling over his conscience.

His captain's face on the bridge, the order to escape, his refusal, the way, before his very eyes, Captain Brannigan turned into a drone.

 

_Three drones were born in Ethan's Cave_

_they were his kin he couldn't save_

_forever dwelling far from home_

_they left him standing in his dome_

_protected from the world outside_

_created tales for nations wide_

_\- his sorrow never left -_

His hand appeared to melt into his phaser, but with feeble fingers he pointed the weapon at them. His ribcage wept blood, his leg shattered, the slow, inexorable change into drone, yet a part of his consciousness forced him to carry out Mel's wish. Already he heard the voices of the multitude, the thousands sounding as one. Somewhere in his brain, a part of him clung tenaciously to the present, to knowing that Mélisande and Rourke and Piers could never be made to suffer a different death.

Phaser set on kill. Wide. They looked at him – his wife, his sons  -  and on their faces fear no longer reigned, but victory. He saw them for the last time, alive, victorious as they approached their end. They would die, he would die.

Pin on them the badge of courage.

Fire!!!

 

_O let my heart forever burn in hell!_

_Where time is written down as Death's great Knell -_

_when bleak my lonely days shall be on Earth_

_I must lament with stirring strings the birth_

_of Grief so great that none shall comfort me -_

Ethan!

Forgive me, Mélisande. Forgive me, my sons. Forgive me…forgive me…

And even as they dissolved in the phaser's fire, hearing their anguished cries, confounding the drones who had held them hostage, he knew that were he to live to tell anyone his tale of woe, he would hear their anguished cries as they died, picture them with broken, bloodied, mutilated bodies even as they were vaporised by his phaser's fire.

He began to hear the Voice of the Collective, the One voice that stood above all.

Y-O-U A-R-E T-H-R-E-E O-F F-I-V-E.

Instruct me.

I  A-M  B-O-R-G

Slowly, the drone Three of Five, designated so by the central Voice of the Hive, rose to his feet.

I A-M  E-T-H-A-N  B-E-L-L-A-M-Y

You are Borg.

R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E  I-S  F-U-T-I-L-E.

The Queen's voice pierced his mind. Unable to counter the penetration of instructions into his brain, he submitted. He was Ethan Bellamy no more, but another being, a thing, the biological distinctiveness of thousands of races now a part of him. He could no more remember his wife or his children. Yet, everywhere around him he was aware, like a tingling sensation that snaked as a constant impulse through his body, of children of all ages in their maturation chambers.

Some were babies just born…

*****************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE POEMS
> 
> Eternal father, strong to save - This hymn is widely regarded as the United States "navy hymn" - Lyrics by Reverend William Whiting and Music by Reverend John B. Dyke.
> 
> Ethan's Cave by vanhunks - only verse 1 in this chapter.   
> Oh, let my heart forever burn in hell - by vanhunks.


	14. DRONE

* * *

**DRONE**

Voices.

Confusion collided with awareness, creating contours of sound rippling towards his cognitive centre. A thousand voices. One voice. Droning on and on and on until faintly at first, then somehow  becoming more defined - sharp, metallic - it reached him.

"Wake up, Commander Bellamy."

From the depths of the mists that swirled in a maddening vortex, his consciousness rose, born into millions of nanoprobes, making him everyone and no one, yet mysteriously unique. The name was strange to him, and so the conscious mind struggled to align memory with identity. He had no recollection of time and place, only an awareness that registered as a deep and aching void which he could not understand. He was perplexed by this torture, the strain of trying to discover the source of his sorrow - for he sensed within him that it was sorrow - too much to bear. So he sought out the old, comforting darkness and slipped away into it, allowing it to envelop him, to seep into his senses where, ironically, the grief failed to dim that sickening ache that wouldn't relinquish its hold on him…

In those shadowy depths, he saw figures, unrecognisable by face and form, yet even there he sensed that they were inextricably linked to his mind and his body. It was what he felt close to him, immediate and inseparable. They rushed forward with elongated arms and long hair that flowed behind them in the gloomy mists that swayed about them. Ghostly apparitions that haunted his being, yet curiously, he desired to know them. He tried to touch them, not with his lifeless, numb fingers, but his mind, his eyes which registered their images. Impossible as they moved away suddenly, to come again tantalisingly closer, with their mouths wide open screaming in the throes of death.

Death?

Why did they look so tormented? Why did they appear as if shock contorted their faces, to freeze them forever into grotesque beings - ghosts that haunted all who sought to find them?

 

_He saw them wave from forests green_

_where once the unicorn was seen_

_where once there was a heav'nly door_

_which magic passage could restore_

_his kin for all the world to see_

_and let him taste this life so free_

_\- his sorrow never left -_

_In murky depths did Mélisande_

_emerge – her curséd spirit's hand_

_she waved in gentle, kind reprieve,_

_the doomed Pélleas once more grieve_

_and Ethan's courage to the end_

_unite and love for brave new friend,_

_\- his sorrow never left -_

The sharp metallic voice called him Commander Bellamy. Was that his designation?

Name is irrelevant.

He tried to force his thoughts, to direct them to the sorrow, which in turn might direct him to the identity of this strange designation. He tried to understand the intensity of his loneliness within his construct as an automaton, a machine programmed to regenerate, to dismiss pain and all its concomitant emotions as an irrelevant aspect of being alive. They fought him, the demons of his humanity and of his new construct, waging battles against each other for supremacy. Slowly the nanoprobes won, overwriting the old order and establishing a new life as Borg, as a walking machine to do the bidding of the Queen.

I A-M- T-H-R-E-E  O-F  F-I-V-E

Yet, somewhere, a corner so small it must have escaped the insidious invasion of nanoprobes, he saw it, that which was the source of his torment.  Fleetingly the clouds parted, allowing the light of remembrance through, even images which leaped at him, challenging, entreating, playfully inviting, teasing him without mercy.  Only moments before they were grotesque in their fear. Now they skipped laughingly past him - a woman with hair the colour of ripe, ripe corn flowing as the wind played in it. She waved, smiling, yet her eyes captured the shadows of the clouds in them. Two small boys were with her, their eyes green, hair brown like his own…

His own? Did memory align with identity after all? Was he Ethan Bellamy, the father of the two children, the husband of the woman?

At first, they danced about, then suddenly she caught them and they huddled in a corner. The little boys' arms were outstretched towards him. Fear had returned to their faces, their mouths open in their screams. She spoke, her voice filling the empty spaces, the moment suspended in which sound and movement played unbearably with his senses, letting him hear every syllable, see every minute stirring, every facial expression captured and etched on the canvas that was his memory.

He was Ethan Bellamy. The woman was Mélisande and the boys were Rourke and Piers, his sons.

"Kill us, Ethan, it is the only way to save us…"

And the battle continued, the battle of his guilt and of his sorrow, of seeing their faces, simple, flitting images that were there one moment, looking at him with great eyes and next moment gone - murdered - by their father's hand.

One moment, Borg drones hovered over them to claim them forever into servitude for the Collective, and the next moment, came the blast from his phaser that had affixed itself into his own new exoskeleton. With what awareness, isolated from the million nanoprobes that issued one command, could he still fire at them?

Their bodies rocked into the horror of their death throes, their screams rending the air until the sound died as suddenly as it had started up. Broken, bloodied he was, the drones moving to him,  impassively, casually letting their tubules fill him with more of Them.

I killed them to save their lives.

A human that would murder for the cause of self-preservation. What paradox would from this day on rule his life?

Then the curtain closed to shut out the light, shut out hair gold like corn, eyes green like pines, smiling, laughing faces. In its stead came the darkness where the new Consciousness returned.

Switch Borg Mode.

Follow the drones, limp behind them with your own broken body, broken heart… Dissolve and materialise on the Borg vessel. Trace your path behind them on the metallic walkways, comply to their commands.

Hear the Voice of the Collective.

Hear the voice of your humanity...

Commander Bellamy, you are the only survivor of the USS Bellerophon. We are deeply sorry for your loss.

_I am Commander Bellamy. I know who I am. Human turned Borg, with the memory of the human - vile memories of death and carnage._

Why are you sorry? I killed my wife and sons. The Federation did not murder them. I took my phaser that merged with my hand and vaporised them. Before my eyes, they died in their screams. It is as clear as if I can see their bodies break, mutilated, bloodied, yet they were gone within seconds. I cannot strip that image from me. Bodies. Broken bodies. My wife. My sons.

Mélisande. Rourke. Piers. My life.

Can't you hear me?

They do not hear your thoughts and so they labour the falseness of your testimony.

And Melly's voice…

_It is our destiny, that you save us from the Borg._

But I am left behind, alone with my guilt.

It is my gift to you, my love, that you be freed from your guilt. I asked you to be greater than yourself, greater than you can ever hope to be.

My heart is dead with the weight of what I must take with me to the Light.

Wake up, Three of Five.

No.

Wake up, Commander Bellamy.

Who am I?

The voices penetrated into his consciousness, simultaneously into the mind of the automaton and the mind of the human entity that was Commander Ethan Bellamy.

_Daddy, do people go mad when the moon is full?_

_Daddy, I'm not a pumpkin!_

Ethan, I did try to understand you...

The biological distinctiveness of Species 5618 shall remain your dominant feature, Three of Five. We have added the biological distinctiveness of Species 4685 of the Delta Quadrant to your own.

S-P-E-C-I-E-S  4-6-8-5  SEASONAL MUTATION INTO OTHER BEINGS.

I am the voice of thousands.

Y-O-U  A-R-E  D-A-M-A-G-E-D.

What is my purpose?

Destroy Earth. The Borg will conquer this quadrant. You will give us the information we need, Three of Five.

You have Locutus of Borg.

Captain Picard.

Locutus of Borg.

"Commander Bellamy!"

Startled by the single, stringent call, he opened his eyes. The sudden movement caused him to blink several times as the light hit his eyes.

Eyes?

One eye human, the other injected with high visual acuity. A prosthetic appendage of damnation. Above him hovered the face of a woman, the owner of the voice. He gave a soft sigh, turning his face away from the battle in the woman's eyes. His retreat didn't last long, for fingers tightened about his chin and forced him to look at her again.

He recognised her. Female admiral of Starfleet, hard as nails, eyes piercing like steel rods. Small, fierce fiend... He heard Neil Brannigan's voice again, that this woman had ordered the Bellerophon with its civilians on board to fight the might of a Borg cube that dwarfed the Federation's finest vessels.

"Admiral Nechayev."

"Bellamy, why did you return to Earth?"

He was on Earth? He closed his eyes a moment. He was not on a starship, not on the Bellerophon and, he decided, not on the Borg vessel. The sense of displacement persisted, Nechayev's red uniform doing nothing but allow the germ of loathing to breed inside him. He was somewhere and his instinct told him that it wasn't a medical facility either.

"Where am I?"

"That is irrelevant. We have severed you from the Collective."

He closed his eyes and thought about the last moments before he lost connection with the voices. There was pain, unbearable pain. He heard his own screams although he couldn't visualise the procedure. He only knew pain, so much of it that he lost consciousness.

Now he remembered. The growing exoskeleton, the prosthetic eye which enhanced his visual acuity a hundred-fold. Long, long passages and walkways on the Bog ship with hundreds of thousands of alcoves, each containing a drone. The constant hum of voices inside his head, the constant air of industry that made him part of Them. The drilling, the repairs which other drones performed on him without speaking a single word, and yet he remained aware of their collective thoughts.

_This drone is damaged beyond repair._

_Of what use can he be to our goal?_

He terminated the life of his mate and offspring .

Terminate my existence.

_He will be returned, in order to betray his own people._

_He resists repair. That is not usual for a drone._

_Return him to his vessel._

He remembered the transport to the Oregon, the shuttle of his doomed vacation. The cello had been lying there, a lost instrument without a master and he had stared at it, perplexed by the familiarity of touching it, yet not understanding his curiosity. He had tried lifting the instrument, then released it without knowing why, only thinking that he would never touch it again. He also remembered that his thoughts were still like vibrations of many voices sounding as one.

A damaged drone, sent back in the damaged shuttle he had disabled himself just before he transported to the Bellerophon and killed...

Mélisande. Rourke. Piers.

Five ships destroyed. He knew the moment he followed the four drones into the corridor from his quarters where the bloodied, broken bodies of his wife and children had lain, vaporised out of existence, that the Bellerophon would explode only seconds later. Stiffly, robot-like, he walked behind them, and materialised on the Borg ship in a section where he was to receive his designation.

Why Three of Five?

_You will be of use to us._

Is not every drone of use?

_They perform a collective duty, yours will be to fulfil another._

You have destroyed my vessel.

_Resistance is futile._

I am damaged. Of what use can I be?

What use was the questioning? He was a drone, he had to comply.

"They told me to return to my shuttle and head for Earth, Nechayev," he finally replied to the imperious female who kept piercing him with her hate-filled eyes.

"What is your purpose here, Bellamy? What is your purpose?"

"I have no recollection of my purpose, now that you have severed me from the Hive mind."

"You are suggesting we should not have severed you?" came her incredulous response.

"I have suggested nothing. I do not recollect any orders given me by the Collective."

"Commander Bellamy, we have so far lost fourteen vessels at Wolf 359 - "  

"My family died!"

"You killed them, Bellamy."

He must be bleeding. Even as he closed his eyes, he saw them, burning on his eyelids and taunting him with their death screams. Of course he killed them.

"They died, yes."

"Fourteen vessels, you understand?"

"You have sent more vessels to engage the Borg? It is futile."

"As we have realised, Bellamy."

"Then do not send more. They will all die!"

"How are we to conquer them? How?"  She tried to grab hold of his head, to shake him, taking a deep breath, then held back. For a moment he thought she would poison him. Could he read her thoughts? Impossible.

"I cannot tell you, Nechayev."

"Cannot, or will not?"

"I do not know how! Why won't you understand?"

"What I understand is that you returned as a Borg drone in one of the Bellerophon's shuttles, that it crashed-landed on the moon. Why would the Borg send back a damaged drone in a Federation vessel? Why? Why?"

He tried to raise his hand, shocked at the sight of his new skin, the metallic look about his exoskeleton and the urge to press his hand into Nechayev's neck and assimilate her, drive her into Borg oblivion. Why was that urge so great? Why? He tried to lift himself up, but found to his dismay that he was heavily restrained on the bed. Even so, Nechayev jumped back, momentarily off guard.

"See? Did you forget that you tried to assimilate three of our Security personnel when they captured you?"

He had a vague recollection of his tubules sinking into a human woman, of hearing her screams before a spray of phaser fire hit him. Why was his protective shielding not working? Did the Borg deliberately make him that vulnerable? Did he kill more people than he was aware of? What happened to the woman?

"You killed Ensign Kraynauw."

How? he wondered. He assimilated her. Why did they not sever her from the Collective too? He recalled only a second in which he heard her call for someone...her mother...

"You filled her with nanoprobes that rewrote her DNA to self-destruct."

Another person dead, by his hands...

"Please, Nechayev, if you send more vessels, they will all be destroyed. And that is what I know."

"You murdered an officer of the Federation!"

"If you send any more ships to Wolf 359, you will have murdered more officers of the Federation, Nechayev."

************** 

And so continued his interrogation until he slipped into the oblivion of his sickness. Somehow he knew that they patched the hole in his chest as well as  his shattered leg. Rudely awakened by Nechayev's steely voice, his refusal to comply, their insistence that he wanted to overthrow the Order. More orders, more accusations, more images of those whom he killed. He even saw the young security officer in the moments before her assimilation. Did the Borg programme him in such a way that any person he assimilated would self-destruct? Why was that when they wanted to incorporate the humans' biological distinctiveness to their own and create a super race that complied, fulfilling all tasks with super efficiency?

Was it a day later? two days? Three days? How much time had elapsed since he opened his eyes to stare into those of Nechayev? Did they send more vessels to their doom despite his warning? Was that why the interrogation continued?

"What was your designation, Commander Bellamy?"

"Three of Five."

"As Three of Five, you were important enough to be given instructions to overthrow the Federation."

"I have been severed from the Collective, Nechayev. How can I possibly inform them?"

"Your nanoprobes in Ensign Kraynauw's body were set to self-destruct. She exploded. Didn't you know? You are an anomaly."

"Because I am a damaged drone? Nechayev, you should know that they considered me beyond repair."

"No, Bellamy. You have been sent back with one objective - to give the Borg information."

"What information? Earth's high security installations? They already scanned the Enterprise and they have Locutus. They know what they must know. I tell you, Nechayev, it is futile to engage the Borg. Only Locutus can be of help."

"Captain Picard? Yes, we have conquered the Borg cube."

"So Picard came to the rescue of the Federation. He was the only one who could help."

"But we lost thirty nine vessels and eleven thousand people - officers, crew and civilians. The Borg may return."

So they did send more vessels to their doom. Altogether thirty nine. The pride of the Federation in tatters, cosmic debris of cosmic proportions.

Yes, he knew that at some point they would return, to wreak havoc again. But his own sensors were compromised. He couldn't hear their voices. Before he could be effective, the cube was destroyed. There was no reason to keep him captive or even alive.

Thousands had died during the battle, many had been assimilated. Even though his link to the Collective was broken, he knew the cube's sphere would have escaped through a transwarp conduit, gone back to rendezvous with other Borg vessels in a quadrant dark to the Federation. They knew very little of the Delta Quadrant, but that was where the Borg originated. He had been severed. How long was he going to survive on his own, as a drone?

He must be in some science facility, or the highly secured Intelligence Centre. He was in pain, but the pain of the body within his Borg state was overpowered by the pain and stark aches that drove like nails in his heart. He lost awareness of time, of how long he had been there or had been interrogated. There were times he sensed, like a tingle of forewarning, that he would slip into oblivion.

He dreamed of them often. Mel and Rourke and Piers. Sometimes he saw them in a field of cotton blossoms, and the heads of Rourke and Piers would bob above the snowy blooms.

_"Peekaboo!"_

_"Caught you!"_

Mélisande would hug them together, tenderly admonishing them not to disturb their Daddy. Then her face would turn heavenwards, into the sun and her hair, the colour of golden corn would lift in the gentle breeze. Then she'd turn to face him, a smile hovering.

"You did what you had to do. This way, we remain as we are in your memory..."

On other days, he searched for them among the ruins of old buildings, blackened by the fires of hell, the acrid smell of flesh in his nostrils imprisoning him to the Chaos.  He saw his Captain, in the moments before his assimilation, the urgent look on Neil's face as he ordered him to take flight. Mostly though, he saw Mel and the boys.

_"Murderer!"_

"No...no..."

************** 

"Open your eyes, Commander..."

New voice. Stern, but not unfriendly. Male.

He opened his eyes slowly. He thought he recognised the admiral with his greying hair and stark blue eyes. There was compassion in those eyes. Ethan sighed with relief.

"Admiral Paris?"

"Yes."

"Where am I?"

"In Starfleet Medical."

That surprised him.

"H-How long have I been...?"

Ethan lifted his hand, saw to his dismay that he was still Borg, but glad he was no longer tethered to the bed. With a sigh he dropped the arm and turned his face away from the piercing blue eyes.

"You have been with Intelligence a week, Commander. We rescued you from Admiral Nechayev's clutches."

If he hadn't felt so completely debilitated and terrible, he would have smiled in response to Admiral Paris's statement.

"I know nothing."

"You knew enough to warn Nechayev about the destructive force of the Borg vessel. She sent more ships to Wolf 359... After that, nineteen more vessels were sent by Gordon and Hays."

"So many died..."

"But you got away."

"I - "

"Tell me?"

"I cannot hear them now, Admiral. Why is that?"

"Because we were at least able to disconnect you from the Collective. A mistake on their part to send a damaged drone back to Earth..."

"Then I gave them no information?"

He couldn't remember much of those first days, except that the process of being severed was painful, that he knew more people would die, that it was futile engaging the Borg.

"No, Commander Bellamy."

"And Nechayev? Can you keep her away from me?"

Paris gave a shrug.

"She's given you a hard time, I know. But do you remember that you warned her about sending more ships?"

"Not much."

"Well you did, and she didn't listen. The Federation has suffered. The Borg threat is gone...for now."

"Thank God..."

"Commander, I understand you lost your family. I am deeply sorry..."

He had heard those words before, in the haze of his delirium, a stringent female voice. Now, able to distinguish at last, he knew how false Nechayev sounded. Admiral Paris's voice was kind, compassionate, a solace to his embattled being...

"Nechayev refused to allow the Bellerophon to take the colonists to a safe planet first. My...wife and children were to have spent a part of the vacation with family on Eridirian."

He couldn't tell Paris he had to kill them.

"What happened to them?"

"They...died..."

"I'm sorry."

"No more sorry than I am, Admiral Paris."

Paris was quiet for long moments.

"Commander Bellamy, a team of doctors is ready to perform a procedure that would restore you to your human state. I've actually come to inform you of that."

"It's possible?"

"Yes. Picard has been restored. But I've been told they cannot guarantee one hundred percent success in your case. Your assimilation was deliberate, for a specific purpose."

"I know now. Reveal Earth's weaknesses," he replied grimly.

"You're an unknown in terms of medical science. We have not progressed that far."

"But you say they have restored Captain Picard - "

"Yes. But in your case there are anomalies. Locutus - Captain Picard....there were no such anomalies with him."

"Can you correct mine?"

Admiral Paris gave a sigh and shook his head.

"They will do what they can for you - "

"Then let me die."

"Commander Bellamy, despite the carnage we have suffered at the hands of the Borg, the ideals of the Federation remain what they are. If we can save one life, we will."

"I am of no use, like this..."

"Any life, you should know, Commander, is worth saving."

He studied Admiral Paris's face a long time before he lifted his mechanised arm in salute.

"Thank you."

"Now, is there any other person, friend or family member we can inform?"

"Is it necessary?"

"It seems you are alone, Commander, if you'll forgive me saying that. Your parents died while you were an Academy cadet. No other family is listed as next of kin. By the way, we have recovered all your files from the shuttle Oregon and have placed your cello in the care of Professor Von Bulow - "

He struggled to digest Paris's words. His files... All his work that he’d downloaded from the Bellerophon, work not on his computers in his apartment. New work. Poetry, short stories, the first draft of _Songs of a Wayfarer..._ Did he have a sixth sense that he would need to do that? The Bellerophon was destroyed and with it all its records... His work was saved, safe... His cello, handcrafted by Johann Kahlmeyer, still intact and in the care of a good man.

"Von Bulow?"

"You know him?"

"He gave master classes for the cello at Juilliard. A good man. Thank you, again, Admiral Paris."

"You're welcome. Now, any family we should contact?"

"I haven't spoken with my cousin in years, but Wanda Rossini is my closest relative. She...I don't know where she is..."

His words trailed away, and he cursed himself for not having kept in contact with Wanda. He had last seen her when she was still a young teenager, a gangly girl who looked strangely enough, like his mother.

"Don't worry, Commander. We'll find her. Right now my wife and her team of doctors are ready to prep you for the removal of all your Borg implants."

"Your wife?"

"Elizabeth Paris. A doctor here at Starfleet Medical."

"Human again," he murmured as he closed his eyes, the images of Mel and the boys taunting him.

This time, accusing him of murder.

************

He liked Doctor Elizabeth Paris immediately and though Kate Pulaski was a no nonsense individual, starkly efficient and highly accomplished, he responded to these two medical officers who had done what they could to restore him to his human form. Beneath Kate Pulaski's formidable exterior lay a heart of gold, he thought privately. She was compassionate, sympathetic without dripping with over-sentimental tendencies and he liked that about her. He wanted no pity, but he did respond to her understanding nature. And Doctor Paris... He could picture her sitting on her porch in a rocking chair telling stories to her grandchildren. Small of stature, with a heart as big as the universe.

He counted himself lucky to have them in attendance. Anyone else asking questions was quickly admonished in the most quiet but firm tones, that Commander Bellamy was not to be questioned or unduly harassed and upset. Once a nurse  - a very young Ketarchan woman - burst into tears when he snapped at her after she had asked him about his prosthetic eye.

The nights were the worst. Some days too, when he emerged from dark, disturbing nightmares. He never realised he was actually screaming until Doctor Paris or Pulaski appeared with a hypospray and administered a sedative.

"I'm sorry, Commander Bellamy, but you have just cracked a rib."

That was after he had fallen off the bed and tried to break his fall, his elbow digging hard into his ribcage.

It had been gradual, his transformation from Borg to human. Each time an implant was removed, his prosthetic eye, the slow removal of his exoskeleton.

He now lay propped up on a hospital bed, able to move his fingers nimbly, flex his muscles, curl his toes, even yawn or rub his chest, feeling the growth of his chest hair again. It was good being back in his own skin. It was good running his fingers over an imaginary keyboard playing an imaginary Chopin etude, or fingering the strings of his beloved cello. In his head returned Boccherini, one of the last pieces he had played before he was transformed into a drone. He imagined he played for Mel, his head bent low over the cello, wringing from it the most mournful melodies, elegies he conjured up from the intimacies of his memory, then playful arpeggios, or slower adagios that escaped from his fingers in velvety smooth sounds that sailed effortlessly with light little cloud puffs away into the skies...

Then there were the nights he dreamed - walkways on the Borg ship, thousands of drones closing in on him, ready to fill him with their nanoprobes. The fear that always filled him as the realisation dawned that he couldn't walk like a human anymore. He saw Rourke and Piers run away from him, their terror etched on their faces. Always, to round off his misery, their dead bodies, burned and mutilated beyond recognition after he fired at them.

He had felt how his individuality passed into the nothingness that was the Hive mind. How he lost ownership of his person, impelled by the Mind to think the same as every other drone. He felt how their Collective goal was to establish forever, that in humans their failings, their flaws, their propensity for irrational behaviour, thought, reactions, their inability to reach consensus created dissent, disorganisation, disunity.

But every man and woman conceded that what made humankind interesting were the very things the Borg purged from them - their diversity, their individuality. For a while, he'd had no power over Ethan Bellamy, and he had tasted the terror of not belonging to himself.

Had Mel sensed this?

If she had, then he had done what he had to do in the circumstances, for he could never picture his children growing into nothing within Borg maturation chambers.

He closed his eyes and tried again to purge their final moments from his mind, but regret had come to build a shack in his heart and his mind, and it accepted accommodation for everlasting sorrow, for guilt and remorse to live with him. His felt his fingers stiffen and clench into fists. If his nails dug into the soft flesh of his palms and if his palms bled, he didn't feel it, nor did he care.

"Mélisande..." he whispered softly.

Then his hands were covered by the softness of another, gently stroking until he relaxed and he opened his eyes. He saw a woman, a woman who smiled kindly, whose eyes were moist, who reminded him strangely of his mother. He grappled a few moments, pulling back the guilt and his sorrow and remorse. The woman had sad eyes, compassionate eyes.

"Hello, Ethan..."

"Wanda..."

"Oh, Ethan!"

"I'm presentable again, I guess. Admiral Paris said he'd find you."

Wanda with her brown hair and dark eyes, her perfect skin. As a young girl she had been typically gangly, pimply, arms and legs flailing. Wanda, the chrysalis, blossomed into a beautiful butterfly.

"I'm sorry to hear about Mel and the children," she said, his hands still in hers, her eyes filling with tears.

"And I live," he said on a bitter note.

"Ethan..."

"Leave me alone, Wanda."

"I can't. I won't. You're about to be discharged. I have a large apartment..."

He had stared at her long. Did she sense he didn't want to go home? Home contained pictures, memories, a record of his life as a husband, a lover, a father. He had thought of going home, and he dreaded the prospect. He still felt amazingly displaced, too displaced, rudderless. Everyone he had known on the Bellerophon was dead or assimilated. His circle of friends gone, his immediate family circle broken. There was nothing in filial bonds or emotional attachments. He was alone. He needed time, time to organise what was left of his life, to regroup, strategise.

"It's fine, Wanda. I'll go home. Don't worry about me - "

"Ethan! Please, then let me at least visit you. Please?"

"Why?"

"I too, have no immediate family. You're the closest I have, the one on whose arm I'll walk into a chapel on my wedding day."

"You’re getting married?"

Wanda gave a heavy sigh. "The man I like likes another. He's already attached, Ethan."

"Then steal him away, for heaven's sake," he said acidly.

Wanda retreated from him, shocked at his outburst.

"I would never do that," she whispered softly.

But he could see that she must love the man, whoever he was.

"What is his name?"

"Mark Johnson. We attended a conference on DS9. He doesn't really know me, but well..."

"You lost your heart."

"He's very friendly with another woman. I've heard they are about to become engaged."

"Mark Johnson. Sounds like a prosaic philosopher. I'm sure he's not your type. Is this woman his type?"

"They look good together. He's in love with her. She's one of the youngest female captains in Starfleet."

"I know her?"

"Perhaps, I don't think so. She's just been made Captain. Her name is Kathryn Janeway. But it's okay, Ethan. Mark doesn't see me at all. We're not even friends..."

"Sorry, then."

 "Well, right now, I have a more pressing task ahead of me that should push Mark Johnson from my thoughts."

 "What is that?" he asked. He was tired again, and soon Doctor Paris would be there to give him a final prognoses.

 "You. I'm going to make sure that my cousin three times removed takes care of himself."

 "Wanda..."

 "Please?"

 He sighed, gripped her hand in his, noting with relief the smoothness of his skin, the absence of those stark metallic veins. He wanted to get back to writing, to playing his cello and he wanted to hear Doctors Paris and Pulaski declare him fit for living again.

He thought he could let Wanda visit him. He realised painfully that he needed her, needed family.

With Starfleet, he was finished.

*********** 

"Commander Bellamy."

The voice rose through the fog and penetrated his dream. Had he fallen asleep again? Did he dwell in the dark halls of Chaos? It called him, like the bright calling of a lark he had heard only once in Oregon when, of a morning, he had walked through the woods of his parents' property. The voice  broke through Chaos and beckoned him into the light.

He opened his eyes slowly, saw two faces, and his heart sank.

The voice of a lark that would bring him doom.

"Doctor Paris..." he croaked, for he suddenly had a raging thirst. She didn't grace him with her usual smile and Kate Pulaski looked sterner than ever.

"Commander Bellamy - "

"I'll hear the good news first," he said, as he felt Elizabeth Paris's hand on his arm.

 

"You're declared fit for duty again. As to today, you're discharged..." she said softly.

"Good news indeed," he responded with a cynical tone. He was feeling much better. He had been flexing his fingers, been creating in his mind new scenes for _Songs of a Wayfarer_ which he had started while still on the Bellerophon. Chaos had never looked better.

Doctor Pulaski sighed.

"Commander Bellamy," she started, "I wonder if you remember anything of the way your DNA was rewritten by the Borg hierarchy?"

He looked at her, startled for a moment, then at Doctor Paris.

"I don't remember much," he admitted, feeling the weight press against his chest. He struggled to keep his breathing even.

"We've isolated and studied your DNA," began Kate Pulaski, "and there are genetic markers of a race unknown to anything we've encountered in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and we are presuming it's a Delta Quadrant race. We could ask our senior scientists to - to - "

He realised with cold fear what they were intending, even if it were to help him, and his mind shut down for a few seconds, letting anger reign.

"You will clone nothing from my body," he barked at them. "I've given you enough, haven't I? You've injected me with anything and everything. You've taken my life and given me my body in return. No more, you hear me? No more... This experiment is leaving."

"You don't understand, Commander," said Elizabeth Paris who kept her cool in the wake of his angry outburst. "It is not our intention to clone anything. But Commander, we have been unable to neutralise it. That is what worries us."

"Will it harm me?" he asked, a little calmer.

"We don't think so," Kate Pulaski added. "Only time will tell. We will have to monitor you over the next few months. Perhaps it's a physiological distinctiveness that won't impair your own primarily human genes..."

"I will be available for monitoring, no more. I just want to be left alone after that..."

"Commander, after what you have been through, I understand that you would want to be left alone. But we need to keep track, you must understand..." said Kate Pulaski.

The Kholar - Species 4685 - seasonal mutation into other beings. That was all he knew. It was a risk he was willing to take. He looked human now, didn't he? He felt human; he was in his own skin, outwardly at least. They couldn't cure it, could they? He was going to live with it until a cure came along, wasn't he? Until then, he was willing to take his chances.

"So there hasn't been a hundred percent recovery, has there?"

Doctor Paris sighed delicately, her eyes kind in spite of the bad news, as if she, as well as Doctor Pulaski, regretted their inability to secure a full recovery. Whatever awaited him within the next year or so, he'd have to detach himself when it came. It was unknown to him. He kept his gaze on Pulaski.

"Well?" he bit out.

"We have also been unable to remove your neural transceiver, Commander Bellamy," Pulaski replied, nodding her head. "Even though Doctor Crusher and her team have been successful in Captain Picard's full recovery, it was too great a risk to remove yours."

"If it doesn't hurt or give me headaches, I can live with it."

"Well, we won't keep you longer. Your cousin Wanda Rossini is waiting outside."

Ethan closed his eyes. He had forgotten about Wanda for a moment. Now the reality hit him. What was he going to tell her? She hadn't seen him in his Borg state, mercifully, and he was glad of that. But only yesterday when she had walked into his room, she had exclaimed with consternation that had him running his hand over his almost bald head.

"Oh, Ethan! Your hair is white!"

That was when he realised what no one had told him: the side effects of his transformation. He realised that he had turned prematurely grey, that it was permanent. He didn't care. He was alive, and if it were not for his music and his writing, he'd have said that he didn't care whether he lived or died either.

When Wanda came in a few minutes later, he had recovered his composure. She had been to his apartment and had brought along clothing and shoes.

"I know you won't stay as a guest in my place, Ethan," she said with a sudden energetic air. "It doesn't stop me from keeping you company in yours, does it?"

"Wanda..."

"And, I've arranged that your cello and sheet music be returned to your home, Ethan."

"Wanda..."

"And also, Admiral Paris encrypted your files downloaded from the shuttle Oregon and that's also waiting for you. Yes, what is it, Ethan?"

"I'll spend a few days with you, if that's okay..."

"Oh, Ethan! I'm so happy! Now I can tell you all about Mark Johnson."

Ethan sighed. Women!

******************

 

 END CHAPTERV14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ethan's Cave - poem, was continued in this chapter.


	15. REPOS AILLEURS

* * *

 

**The present, circa 2379.**

**When firs rose up to touch the silver cloud**

**and melodies from larks and lutes their way**

**to bruiséd hearts did find, proclaimed aloud**

**it was her face that led his heart astray...**

                        

                                    **_vanhunks_**

 

A blustery wind had sprung up and the ocean had begun its noisy offensive against the boulders just north of where Kathryn sat on a rug, reading. The dogs had run off after Ethan, quickly transferring their loyalty from their new mistress to him the moment he got up and decided to walk the length of the short stretch of beach. They bounded alongside him, panting, barking, their tails wagging, so full of energy that it was Ethan who had a hard time catching up.

The landscape never ceased to amaze her. It appeared to shift, to change with the mood of the ocean or the winds. Pristine white beaches formed like half moons, ending in  rocky promontories that paused occasionally with shallow rock pools before connecting, like a giant chain, with the unseen beach on the other side always surprised the viewer. Then there were the sandstone cliffs towering above the shore like avenging angels, plunging to depths of a hundred metres.

The day she arrived on Ethan's property, she had landed her shuttle on the cliff, quite close to the edge, according to him. It still gave her shivers that she could have died, plunged to her death, or later, even worse, died of exposure if he hadn't found her.

She dispelled those thoughts and tried to concentrate on her book. The morning glow had, unnoticed, slowly made way for the azure sky in which the sun had bathed it. Earlier, she had gazed at the deep red glow, completely awed as she breathed in the scene. The words of Omar Khayyam had sprung to mind

 

_"Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night_

_Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight…"_

 

It never mattered to her whether the setting was the desert or an isolated shore… The same sense of wonder would be instilled in anyone who had the receptive soul to appreciate nature in its most magnificent, elemental form. She had gazed at the growing red sun, thinking illogically how the stars flee in the wake of the approaching force of day. But looking upon nature with such a heart suppressed for a moment only the scientist, and gave birth to the poet, the dreamer, the painter….

Kathryn put the book down on her lap, gazing in the distance where Ethan was running the dogs. She smiled. Conor and Keira were Irish Setters, little bigger than large pups, like active teenagers in dog terms, that Ethan had surprised her with in May.

She had been deeply asleep after a long day at the office. Too many late nights spent with Mike Ayala assisting, then taking work home to her apartment. Several diplomatic missions were planned with constant meetings which kept her desk-bound. She had left on the Friday and made the short trip to Beaver's Lodge in great haste only to find that Ethan wasn't home. He had left no note, nothing to indicate when he'd return. It was so like Ethan. He didn't mind her coming and going whenever it pleased her. He had told her succinctly, "Old recluses never die" and then promptly disappeared into his office and hammered out three thousand words of a short story. Ethan would return and he'd probably wake her up in the morning.

She had prepared herself a meal and sat on the deck to enjoy it. She had reread the final chapters of Warrior Mine, Ethan's last novel. So engrossed had she been that only when she couldn't see the text anymore, had she realised that it was dark. She had gone to bed, listening to the gentle strains of a Chopin nocturne.

She must have fallen asleep because she started gasping for air as she felt tongues lapping excitedly at her cheeks, her face, her closed eyes, her hair, her nose, her hands which tried to determine the origin of the tongues, for she sensed they were tongues. And they were wet and drooly! Her whole face was wet. When she opened her eyes, Ethan was sitting on the side of the bed, and the owners of the tongues were yelping excitedly as they vied for her attention. They dug into her bosom with their tiny paws, licking and panting. How could two such cuties like her instantly? And, she realised, stunned, it was already morning! Light was filtering through the window and the doggies kept up their burrowing against her.

"Ethan! Where? What…?" she sputtered as she caught the two pups, struggled to sit up in bed and held them close to her. "They're adorable!"

"Happy birthday, Kathryn," he had said drily as he took one pup from her.

"Happy - ? Oh!"

"May 20th. I thought women never forgot…"

And before she had time to mull over the absence of her mother, of Phoebe, of Chakotay and everyone else who had been such a part of her life before, Ethan had drawn her close and kissed her gently, lingeringly. For a moment she had been confused at the current that passed through her at the touch of his lips on hers. When she let out a little moan, he released her immediately. He had become instantly inscrutable, as if he  wasn't aware of the effect his touch had on her or that he had kissed her.

"Thank you, Ethan. For thinking of me. For these two utterly adorable cuties!"

"They're the offspring of Molly, Kathryn."

She had stared blankly at him for a second, feeling how the moistness in her eyes threatened to blur her vision. It did blur her vision, for Ethan's hair looked like a desert mirage and the pups with their long ears became the waving fronds of palms at the oasis. Her palm against her mouth had stifled the sob she had tried to contain. Then she had thrown herself in his arms and rested her head against his chest, only releasing him quickly when the puppies cried in their agitation of being squashed by them. Mark had kept Molly until she died, but her pups had been sold. She had missed Molly, had not allowed herself to be angry that Molly's pups had gone to new owners. Now Ethan had no doubt overturned the entire Federation to retrieve Molly's offspring. Probably her grandchildren by now.

"Thank you, Ethan. I - I…"

"It's my gift to you, Kathryn, for what you have done for me. So before we get mushy, we'd better feed our babies. Uh, what shall we name them?"

The 'we' didn't escape her and her heart rushed with pride and joy.

"Conor, for the boy," she said.

"Keira for the girl."

"Deal."

Ethan had taken the wriggling pups outside, leaving her to shower and dress. By the time she had joined them on the deck, the pups were in their baskets, fast asleep. Ethan had given her a sheepish grin, and she had wondered when she had ever seen him look so awkward.

"Thank you again. I missed Molly, like I missed everything that was home."

"I wanted to tear some flesh off Mark," he responded gruffly, "because I knew how much it must have meant to you, but…"

"But…?"

"Maybe I sensed that I would have reason to rescue Molly's offspring…for you… I knew of you when I met Wanda again after many years, just after Doctor Paris and her team rescued me from drone-hood. She said Mark loved you very much, and didn't want to intrude. Besides, he had just gotten engaged to you."

"The things we learn... I'm not sorry about Mark, you know. I knew that he had to move on. Many of the crew's families moved on..." She had been thoughtful a few seconds. Then, "Thank you, Ethan, for Conor and Keira. I love them already..."

"Happy birthday, Kathryn."

Again, she had given him a long, pensive look, unable to understand the changed tone in his voice, no longer so metallic, but a little softer. Perhaps she just imagined it, or perhaps it had more to do with his permanent transformation to being human again. She had walked to him where he sat in a deck chair and stroked his white mane. That was never going to change, Voyager's EMH had told him. Bending lower, she had kissed him, surprised when he held on to her, letting the touch linger.

Then she released him and sat back again.

"Thank you for remembering my birthday. I guess you asked Admiral Paris... Ethan, on Voyager the only - "

"You will ruin my day if you mention Chakotay."

She had stopped instantly, remembering the dusty boot print of a Borg drone on the photograph of Chakotay. Even in Ethan's altered state, he hated Chakotay. She could no more hate Chakotay than she could the two cute setters Ethan had presented her, so to dispel the mood, Kathryn had invited the light side of morning into her being. She felt suddenly more enervated, more excited, more imbued with a sense of purpose.

"Fine," she had told him. "We could take the pups with us up to the lake…"

"I have to do some work, Kathryn. You enjoy the morning with your new babies…"

And with that they had set a pattern in the followings weeks, with Ethan often rudely interrupted by the barking pups. His look of irritation quickly dissipated when they gave him their soulful looks and expected to be patted on their heads.

Ethan had grown stronger by the minute it seemed, after the procedure on Voyager, and they had grown closer since then.

There had been many confessions and Ethan's story had shocked her, though no more than the pain she had herself felt on Voyager when she had been assimilated, felt her life drained from her, her identity, everything that connected her to Kathryn Janeway, unique individual. Ethan had heard her story too and felt reassured that she could understand his pain and his trauma

She wept inside for the loss of his wife and two boys, realising that the pictures she had seen in his bedroom were their pictures. She could understand how he could fall out of love with his wife, how the spark of love could die a slow death if it were not kept lit, kept alive. She felt for the poor, doomed Mélisande, felt for Rourke and Piers.

Mostly, she felt for Ethan, whose story had been told to her in parts, sometimes fluently, at others so pained and tortured that she could only hold him close to her and wait until he was ready to continue.

It was like a dam that had burst. Everything that Ethan had bottled for ten years - even longer - overflowed in halting speech as he told her his tale.

****

Brought back to the present, it was to see Ethan blocking her morning sun and the dogs at the water's edge, barking at some unknown foe. They'd have to leave soon. The tide was coming in.

When Ethan sat down next to her, it gave her a good view of him. Despite the chill in the air, they had braved the beach, coming down in Ethan's small runabout. With the dogs, they hadn't had much of an opportunity to abseil the cliffs, though one morning they did attempt it with the pups strapped to their bodies. It was as uncomfortable as it was dangerous. She had thought of leaving the pups with Mike's sons, but she hadn't been able to tear herself away from the setters and had insisted that the next time they went down the cliffs, they do so in his runabout. Ethan's eyes had narrowed, his voice caustic when he replied, "They're your pups, Janeway. They love you to pieces." She had wanted to retort that the pups didn't know their own minds and shifted their loyalty very quickly to him the minute he decided to take a break from playing or writing and wandering off into the woods. That way they could chase squirrels, attempt to catch beavers, or bark at the birds. She had bitten back her reply when Conor and Keira yelped excitedly and actually nipped her at her heels. Ethan had just lifted an eyebrow and then moved to the back, followed by the dogs which had, once again, not known their minds.

"They're growing out of their skins…" Ethan said reflectively as he watched Conor and Keira bounding about.

"Hmmm. Good ending for _Warrior Mine_ …"

Ethan rolled his eyes. The dogs were forgotten for a moment.

"Sheese, you finished that two months ago."

"What's wrong with reading a good book again?"

"You're stalling."

"What?"

"Come on… You know what I'm talking about. Why are you at Beaver's Lodge today? It's Voyager's first anniversary and you're here, in your home away from home. You should be in Indiana, at your house, preparing for the ball."

"I wish I could just stay here on this beautiful little beach with the dogs, my book, you…"

"Kathryn…"

"Truly."

She really wanted to remain with him without fully comprehending such an action, knowing that she had to be at the Federation Memorial Hall that evening.

Ethan's eyes softened and he placed his arms round her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze. Much of him had softened from the hard, jaded cynic he had been. Ten years of pain, of sorrow and guilt and remorse bottled up, the fear every spring that he would mutate into a Borg… He had been cured by a brilliant team of doctors, headed by the EMH, and helped enormously by the advanced Borg technology they now possessed since Voyager's return.

He had told her his story, in bursts of lucidity at times, at others in a haze of sorrow that ravaged his face, his bearing reduced to an old man looking at his life with great anger. She had him moved back to Beaver's Lodge and here, in his own familiar surroundings, he had begun telling her of Mel of the beautiful name, of his sons Rourke and Piers, his quest to be understood, Mel's inability to have faith in his work, to understand it, of his assimilation, everything which he had never told a soul. She was still the only person who knew what had happened.

One night, he had woken up in a sweat and called to her. She had gone to his room and found him lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. There were no traces of his Borg alcove anymore; Ayala and Icheb had been entrusted with recycling the material and getting rid of any traces of Ethan's Borg existence. He had gazed at her long, then clamped her hand tightly in his. She had never known Ethan to be vulnerable, not even when he had been a drone, for his old imperiousness had emanated even from that human fossilised into machine. Yet that night he seemed to need her, and it was a very unfamiliar feeling, not the way the crew had needed her on Voyager. It was different, as if a shaft with a diamond tip had speared into her soul and there the tip radiated, sending smaller shafts of light through her body. She had closed her eyes at the new feeling, wondering whether she had been searching for it.

Then Ethan's voice had broken through the mists of that strange new wonderment, so fledgling she had hardly wanted to give it any substance.

"Do you know what I long for most?" he had asked, without looking at her. Her eyes had flown open at the hollow sound of his voice.

"What, Ethan?"

"Peace. To be forgiven. It eludes me."

"Perhaps it is a process, one you're not ready to recognise…"

"Perhaps." Then he turned his face to her. Beads of perspiration on his upper lip, his forehead, the way he still gripped her hand so tightly…had he had a nightmare?

"You dreamed."

"Yes. Of her."

"Mélisande has forgiven you."

"She was very beautiful. But I stopped loving her. My children…were my life…"

"You saved them from something worse than death, Ethan. They would have dwelled forever in the twilight zone of namelessness, with no memories, no history, their uniqueness stolen from them…"

She knew her words had been hardly comforting, but perhaps it was her voice, her presence that seemed to calm him. Quietly she had lifted the cover and slid into the bed, her fingers still tingling from his strong grasp.

"You're in my bed," he had said sleepily.

"That's because you won't let my hand go."

"Stay."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Ethan had given a deep sigh as she rested her palm on his chest, snuggling close to him so that her face was against his neck. His breathing had become even again. It felt oddly reassuring lying next to him in his bed, his breathing a welcome monitor that he was alive. She had remembered with some melancholy how he must have listened to her breathing too, when she had been lying in a comatose state. Ethan had shifted to his side and she had nestled against him, her arm round his waist. In the morning she had quietly extricated herself from his grasp and headed for her own room. He never spoke with her about that night but the new light in his eyes had been evidence that he was busy conquering the raging storms in his life.

Or, that he had begun to like her…

He played the cello often these days, and most times she was content just to listen while she read a book, or was busy with one of her outlandish paintings, or penned a poem.  When she visited Beaver's Lodge, she left Starfleet matters at home.

But she always remembered how he spoke with her that night, how she felt for the first time that Ethan needed her.

Now, the anniversary ball beckoned and she felt an apprehension, of seeing Chakotay with his wife, of remembering. Sighing softly, she rested her head against Ethan's shoulder, relishing the richness of their friendship, her reluctance to leave Beaver's Lodge. She really didn't feel like facing Chakotay, she admitted, conceding that Ethan always hit the nail on the head where she was concerned. She had come to Beaver's Lodge to organise her warring emotions and she knew she was no nearer to being ready than she had been back in her apartment. Sometimes, Ethan infuriated her with his insight. A smile tugged at her mouth. She gave as good as she got, remembering how Ethan would just vanish into his music whenever she got too close to the truth with him.

He hated being vulnerable, and that time when he had called her name in the middle of the night, he hadn't wanted her to leave after she slid under the covers and comforted him. He had felt solid, and when he had turned on his side she had spooned herself behind him and felt at peace for the first time in years.

"Where are you dwelling this time, Kathryn?" Ethan asked softly, turning his attention away from the sea, the dogs.

"I thought of the night we spoke."

"Ah. That night. You left my bed like a thief in the night. You disappointed me."

"I did?"

"Hmmm, yes. Now that you know I cannot live a day without you, shall we take our leave of this incredibly beautiful moment and talk about tonight?"

"Oh. Tonight. Anniversary. I don't feel like going, Ethan."

"Oh, because you have to face your former first officer, his wife and their two month old baby, whom they have decided to call Kathryn?" he said mockingly. "Boy, you're really out of it where he's concerned. You’re prepared to hide away in a mountain cabin and not see your former crew who are dying to see you. Just because of one man."

There was a mocking twist to his mouth.

"Let's go," she bit out, scrambling to her feet, collecting her shoes, small spread, and her book; with the dogs scampering behind her, she trudged through the soft sand to the runabout. As she reached it, a hand grabbed her shoulder and swung her around.

Ethan's eyes flashed angrily.

"You coward," he hissed through clenched teeth.

She saw a nerve twitch in his jaw. His fingers dug painfully into her shoulders.

"I don't think you understand," she bit back, wincing at his vice-like grip, which he released only slightly when he saw her reaction.

"You can't leave him alone, can you, Janeway? They have a baby they named for you. You've seen the child. You've seen the couple. You told me they're happy. What do you want from him? That he throw you on your back and make love to you and tell you you are the only love of his life? How low can you get? You want him inside your body so bad you're willing to whore your principles - !"

She struck him. The next moment Ethan stood, stunned. She saw red creeping slowly into the cheek she'd just struck. Unable to rationalise her action, her eyes filled with tears, his face receding into the new mist that formed.

"I…am not going to apologise…" she said slowly, feeling her voice break, swallowing the lump in her throat as she tried to prevent the tears.

It hurt her, the damning realisation spreading like fire through her body. On those nights that she dreamed of Chakotay, she recalled those memories from New Earth when they had made love into the early hours of the morning, when they had no restraint, walked nude wherever they needed to be.

When she had seen Chakotay and Annika shortly after their return to Earth, with their baby barely a few weeks old, the feelings she had tried to obliterate and thought she'd succeeded, had all rushed to the fore again. Chakotay had given her a long, studied look, as if he were trying to find out whether she still loved him. As if he remembered their night on Dorvan, rekindling the old flame that lurked as dark, glowing embers inside them. As if he wanted her again. A hunger, a look in his eyes that mirrored the same look on Dorvan when he couldn't leave her alone. She tried to find the source of that hunger within her, tried to return in her mind and soul and heart to that moment on Dorvan when she thought, knew, that she would never be free of him.

She searched for that corner, found it, and found nothing in it.

Nothing except friendship. And pity. For Chakotay.

And then the realisation had hit her: it was over. Looking at Chakotay and Seven cooing over their baby, the joy she had for both of them… In her mind flashed another scene - of a man with white hair and eyes green like pines, who wouldn't let go of her hand one night when he needed her comfort. Everything was so new, so uncharted, so unbelievably different from anything she had ever felt for Chakotay that she wondered….wondered… She shook her head, shuddering inwardly at the thought that she could feel different, new, free.

Ethan didn't understand.

"You still love him…" Ethan said, his words echoing her roaring thoughts.

_You don't understand…_

"Ethan, I - it's not what you - "

"Look, I know that your world contains only his face, his pain, his paintings. I shouldn't be so hard on you, but damn it, Kathryn! They have a child together!"

It was pointless arguing with Ethan while he remained convinced of her feelings for Chakotay. His only frame of reference had been the nights he sat with her, bled with her while she wept of things past, while she had allowed herself to sink into an abyss. An abyss in which Ethan had seen the very depths of her darkness, and most of her doom and sorrow had been tied with Chakotay. Why would he believe anything different now?

She wiped at the tear that slid down her cheek, collected herself and touched his arm gently.

"Will you accompany me tonight, Ethan?" she asked.

He moved closer to her, the hands that had gripped her shoulders earlier with so much force, suddenly reassuringly gentle as she felt them cup her cheeks.

"I'm a very patient man, Kathryn  Janeway. But let me tell you this: I'm not a Borg drone anymore…"

************

She stood in front of her mirror. A long evening gown clung to her, accentuating firm lines, the gentle swell of her breasts, her hips. She mentally thanked Pierre for suggesting the slinky velvety burgundy fabric. She wouldn't have thought she'd looked anything like Garbo or Hepburn in the audacious lines of the garment, but Pierre, who studied the dress of twentieth century movie stars, had managed to convince her.

"Miss Gabor - "

"Gabor?"

"Yes, Eva and Zsa-Zsa, Miss Harlow and other ladies like them..."

"Oh."

"Yes, they would not have looked better. Besides, those, uh...screen goddesses were given to plumpness. You, on the other hand, look...just right!"

She admitted it looked good on her, very good, complimenting her hair colour. Her hair was sleek, curling slightly inward at her neck. She had decided to adorn her neck with a single emerald pendant.

Ethan had not seen the dress; she just knew he would look mockingly at her and declare that he'd have to be extra vigilant in keeping the wolves away. She had wanted to leave from Indiana. After their spat this morning at Beaver's Lodge, the tension had grown between them and it unsettled her, leaving her on edge. He hadn't been very flattering when he lashed at her, his anger palpable for the first time since they had met under such dramatic circumstances. The dogs had accompanied them, with the Ayala boys taking care of them overnight.

She gave an inward sigh as she smoothed the fabric over her hips.

Ethan didn't understand. How could he understand what he didn't know? He was a master at sensing her mood, reading her so accurately at times that she had given up being concerned. She had been vulnerable to him in her most basic needs, why should she feel any humiliation now? Yet, a part of her balked at being so transparent to him.

She remembered Ethan's words earlier in the year, just before she had visited Chakotay on Dorvan.

_If you want to purge yourself of Chakotay, I can't take you down that road..._

He was right. It was a road that she had to walk alone. It hadn't been easy. In fact, it was intensely difficult trying to stop herself from thinking about Chakotay too often. She didn't half understand how two men could hold so much sway over her emotions. Sometimes she thought she couldn't breathe for just thinking of Chakotay. At other times, especially in Ethan's company, she could forget her woes and find Ethan's sharp wit and energy thrilling. She thrived then, wondering how she could forget Chakotay relatively easily when Ethan was playing an Elgar adagio or Haydn. These days, Ethan humoured himself by playing the Paganini theme variations, mirroring his new, lightened mood since he had become permanently human.

Most nights though, Chakotay had intruded in her dreams...

It had stunned her when Mike Ayala informed her of Annika Hansen's pregnancy. After that, she had accepted that there was nothing she could do about it anymore, that a baby was a reality of the bond between Chakotay and his wife. Her own feelings were now irrelevant, however much she still loved Chakotay. She was still prepared to be his friend, and had succeeded in remaining that despite what had happened between them on Dorvan.

When the baby was born, they had called her on subspace communication to inform her and to ask her permission to name the baby for her. And then...

"We're leaving for Earth in two weeks, Kathryn."

She had been surprised, frowning as she looked at him.

"We haven't offered you any vessels yet, though I would have liked to give you command of Voyager."

"No, Voyager is safe in Tuvok's hands. I'm taking up a professorship at the Academy."

"You are?" she asked lamely, surprised that she hadn't seen that coming.

"Annika has accepted a position at the Science Institute."

Her heart thudded painfully for a few seconds. Chakotay would be in Federation space. Not only that, he would be on Earth, on her doorstep. Chakotay had smiled, the dimples forming, and a searing pain had taken hold of her. Annika was in his bed...Annika enjoyed his lovemaking…

"Then I'm happy for you."

"It's only for a year. After that we'll decide on settling permanently."

She had been apprehensive about their return to Earth. Their paths would cross most likely. While he was so far away on Dorvan, it had been easier. How was she going to react to his nearness?

And it had been difficult, the first few meetings after their return. The first had been to meet them with their new-born baby girl, Kathryn. Pretty, with Chakotay's colouring and Annika's blondness and eyes. She had bled for hours after that. Annika's eyes had shone with pride and Chakotay looked the proud, overjoyed parent, although she noticed that his gaze lingered on her when she had held their baby in her arms and touched the infant's rosy cheeks. If he read the tears in her eyes as a sign of her regret, then she didn't care anymore. But his look remained with her during their subsequent meetings.

He tried to mask it, tried to use casual conversation as a smokescreen, but he couldn't hide what she knew to be hunger in his eyes. It was a hungry look.

Then a few weeks ago - she had just returned from Beaver's Lodge after a fulfilling weekend in Ethan's company - Chakotay arrived at her office.

"I hear you've just returned from...Oregon," he said.

Chakotay had sounded curious. He had yet to meet Ethan, who still preferred his solitude, keeping away from the crowds. Chakotay hesitated at the threshold of her office before taking hurried steps to stand opposite her. She had that sinking feeling again which she had on Dorvan when he had visited her so late that evening.

"What brings you here, Chakotay?" she asked.

"Did you ever read _Warrior Mine_?"

It appeared he had also just finished the book.

"You took a few minutes off from classes just to ask me that?"

"Well?"

The first few days at Beaver's Lodge, Ethan had read to her, sometimes in the middle of the night;  even through the mists of her illness she could hear his clear voice, the characters in the novel brought to life by the very man who created them. Later, she had read the novel twice.

She had given an exaggerated sigh.

"I read it," she said. "I found it cerebral, innovative, challenging. Mostly, I found it inspirational."

"I thought you might. It must have been written with you in mind."

_You don't know how much..._

"But that's not why you're here," she stated.

"Kathryn, I - "

"Yes?"

He had looked suddenly disconsolate and she frowned. What was the matter with him?

He cleared his throat. "Uh…Annika doesn't want to accompany me to an archaeological exhibition in Mexico. It's on site. It's only for a few hours. I thought you might - "

"No, thank you. And Chakotay, there's no reason why you can't go on your own."

"You always liked archaeological finds. I'm in need of my friend's company..."

He had given that dimpled smile, the one that always won her over, the one that could coax her out of her depression, the one that always crumbled her resistance. She experienced a great flash, as if it literally blinded her. He had been banking on the fact that her feelings for him hadn't changed, was testing her reaction. He had wanted them to be alone again somewhere.

She had met with Annika once when Chakotay hadn't been present, and had sensed the former Borg was still too reticent in her company, as if she didn't trust the woman who had once been her husband's lover. Kathryn had been at great pains to make her feel comfortable, and assured her through genuine friendliness and joy at having a baby named for her, about her happiness for the married couple, and she had seen Annika Hansen give a sigh of relief.

Chakotay had been lying in wait for her, watching every nuance of her movement, her reaction. She could tell him she was otherwise engaged; she could tell him she was too busy with work. Her heart had hammered and her breathing had become a little painful.

"I shall invite you and Annika to have dinner with me one evening. I'd love to have you both on a visit to my Indiana home. But, my friend, I don't wish to attend an exhibition with you. Not today, or tomorrow or the day after. You know what I mean..."

Chakotay had the grace to flush dark red and she had known that she had hit the nail on the head. He moved quickly around the desk and pulled her to her feet.

"I tried, Kathryn. I tried very hard."

And then his mouth captured hers in a punishing kiss which was over as soon as it started for she had pushed him violently away. She had been angry.

"Then try harder. I did."

"You can't mean that..."

"Look at yourself, Chakotay! You're a husband and father trying to rekindle something that's over. Over, you understand? It's over!"

He had looked forlorn and her heart burned for him. He had left without answering, giving her one last lingering look before the door closed behind him. When he was gone, she had touched her lips, placed her hand against her heart, rejoicing in the way it beat normally, not racing as it always did when he threatened her with his nearness like that.

And then the total freedom she had felt when she realised that she had made the right decision. Her heart was finally finding peace.

 _I no longer love him..._ had been the thrilling thought that coursed through her.

She had stood at her office window and gazed over the lawns at the tall trees in the distance and allowed a few tears to roll down her cheeks, tears for something that was over at last.

_"If you want to purge Chakotay from your heart and mind, I can't take you down that road"_

_Let this part of my life die a natural death_

Goodbye, Chakotay...

_*_

"Are you coming, Kathryn?" Ethan's voice broke into her reverie.

She turned to see him standing just inside the door of her bedroom, smiling as he approached her. He stood next to her and together they stared at their reflections on the mirror.

"You are beautiful, Janeway. That dress is a sin."

"I'm glad you agreed to accompany me to the ball."

She saw how his reflection grimaced. Was he remembering their argument?

"Am I your protection tonight?"

 "No."

 "Good. Because I'm not your white knight, come on a white stallion to - "

 "Stop that, Ethan. I know it's difficult for you too. My former crew are curious about you. It's the first time that most of them will have seen you. They'll probably think - "

 "We're lovers?"

 She turned to look at him, his face revealing nothing of his inner feelings. He looked inscrutable, his eyes narrowing in that familiar way.

 "I make no apology for my friendship with you, Bellamy."

 He gripped her shoulders.

 "I'm sorry about my words this morning. I was out of line."

 "Shall we go?"

 He gave a sigh as he dropped his hands.

 "Yes. Let's go."

 ***********************

 He felt like an insect under a microscope. The only people he knew, other than Kathryn, were Mike Ayala, Icheb and Tom Paris. There had been a slight murmuring when Chakotay and his wife entered the hall but made no attempt to meet Kathryn at her table. The others all looked at him furtively, and while Kathryn had introduced the crew to him as they approached their table, he remained restless. He wanted to get away from here, but if he were to remain Kathryn's friend, he had to endure the unashamed curiosity of her crew. The Borg woman looked stunning for someone who had given birth barely two months earlier but he had not been much impressed. He had seen Chakotay taking great care to have her seated, and they were joined by Mike Ayala, Kathryn's aide, and his wife, Carmen, whom he had met once. Carmen was one of those genuinely gentle women who hid a surprisingly strong streak. The others just kept staring even after they had been introduced, and they had returned to their tables.

 Maybe it was his hair and green eyes; maybe it was just his presence as Kathryn's partner. He sat nursing his drink, waiting for Kathryn to return from the floor. She was dancing with Tom Paris. When Kathryn threw her head back and laughed, his heart contracted. He thought how different she looked now, how collected, how together, in total contrast to the sick woman he'd nursed back to health.

Mark Johnson had been right without ever saying a single word. Ethan thought his heart was caught in a noose, and pulling it tighter and tighter, squeezing it 'til it bled, was Kathryn Janeway. Did Johnson sense that Kathryn would be the person who could lure a lonely recluse out of his self-styled captivity? Had his own heart been so hard and cold then? He had seen her lying helpless on the ground and had known that she would change his destiny forever even as he fought the idea that he could be held hostage by a woman again.

 Was that why he had been fighting it for so long? Fighting and losing the longer Kathryn remained within his space? He had seen her through every emotion imaginable, and this morning when she had struck his cheek, he had seen the anger flash in her eyes, anger that had been replaced by mortification, by guilt at losing control and then, finally, the sheer will to control herself.

 Everything he had ever demanded, pleaded, coaxed, fought for out of his fictional characters he had seen in Kathryn and his constant interaction with her. Kathryn had fought him, challenged him, inspired him more in the last year than he had been inspired by Melpomene, Euterpe and Terpsichore in all the years before that.

 These days his sleep was dream-filled - images of Kathryn sitting on the beach down below the cliffs, images of Kathryn cuddling the dogs, images of her smiling, lifting her face to the sun, the way she would lift the corner of her mouth if she was amused by something he'd said.

 The way she would leave him alone to breathe...

 He once referred to Chakotay as a coward, an opportunist, a man who couldn't leave Kathryn alone.

 Now he understood why men and women could do stupid things, why men and women broke the law, and disregarded their own moral codes and to let the call of the flesh give vent to their passions. He had once loved his wife but had gradually fallen out of love. Mélisande had turned into a clinging vine, had never understood his drive, had never challenged him, had never shown interest in his music or his writing, those two artistic expressions that made Ethan Bellamy the man he was.

 Kathryn fought her dependence, fought him every inch of the way even though she needed him. She would never cling; he yearned suddenly for her to lean on him and tell him that her love for a married man had died a natural death. He knew that if Kathryn belonged to him, that if Kathryn became an essential element of his mind and his heart, that if he couldn't breathe without her, that he would never be able to let her go.

 However long it takes...

Now he knew that it was impossible.

 Kathryn hadn't returned to his table after her dance with Tom Paris. Instead, she found herself in Chakotay's arms on the floor and they were dancing a waltz. They looked good together, he conceded, and once when they floated past him, he saw her smile up at Chakotay, even felt the extra squeeze Chakotay was giving her.

 Kathryn was losing herself in her former first officer's arms. He thought she should have refused Chakotay, but berated himself for his puerile thoughts. It would have been ill-mannered had she refused to accept the man's invitation to dance.

 "Commander Bellamy?"

 He tore his gaze away from the couple on the floor and looked at the person standing in front of him.

 "Icheb..."

 "May I sit down?"

 "Of course."

 Icheb sat down.

 "Commander, as you know, I am in my third semester at the Academy. There will be an open day in two weeks'  time."

 Icheb paused, and Ethan thought he looked flustered. Ethan had met the young man just after he had been cured by the EMH and his team of doctors. Icheb had been instrumental in his recovery, his nanoprobes used in the procedure the EMH had performed to make his transformation to human permanent. He liked Icheb. He had been introduced formally just after Kathryn had woken him from his deep slumber. The precious few minutes before that he had spent with Kathryn alone in the sick bay of Voyager - precious, precious moments which had, later, at Beaver's Lodge, resulted in a flood of poetry he hadn't yet shown her.

 Kathryn had told him that the young man was without family in the Alpha Quadrant, and besides being a former Borg neonatal drone, Icheb was the only representative of his race in the Alpha Quadrant.

 "I know about the open day, Icheb. Admiral Janeway told me. What is it that you require?"

 "I wish that you would represent me, Commander."

 "Icheb? I thought Admiral Janeway was representing you."

"That you both be there, for me."

 Ethan closed his eyes briefly. There was a sound, a sound which he realised was the hammering of his heart against his ribcage -  tympani in an orchestra allowed briefly, for two or three bars, the honour of being the only instruments heard. Were his eyes deceiving him? He saw Rourke's face superimposed on Icheb's. Rourke would have been eighteen and if he had wanted to, been an Academy cadet, and he would have asked his parents to be there on open day. Icheb was still sitting quite still, waiting for his response. Ethan's throat felt thick as memories of his sons swamped him. Rourke playing the cello, Piers just being all boy, laughing and playing, always in motion. Rourke's face open and clear as he asked his father to tell him another of his fantastic tales.

  _"Daddy, let's clean the floor!"_

_"Okay..."_

_Indulgently, he'd let the boys each grab an ankle and then he'd walk through his quarters on the smooth floor, pulling the boys along on their stomachs, their laughter pealing through the rooms._

_He saw Rourke with his own baby cello in the holodeck with little fingers trying to achieve  a vibrato._

_Their breathless expressions as they tore the wrapping off their Christmas gifts..._

 A warmth spread right through Ethan's body. How had it happened that they were now images of happy children, laughing and playing or reading books? Before he always, always, without fail saw their fear just before they were vaporised in his phaser fire...

 "Commander, are you alright?"

 Icheb's face came into focus again. The boy had no parents here. He _had_ no parents. He was looking to Kathryn Janeway and Ethan Bellamy to fulfil that role. Ethan's insides burned. When he spoke at last, he struggled to find composure, yet his voice rasped with emotion.

 "I have never felt better, young Icheb. I am indeed very honoured to represent you. Thank you."

 "It is I who should thank you, Commander."

 ***************

 Kathryn gave a sigh of relief when the dance ended and she could rejoin Ethan at their table. Icheb had just left and Ethan had a pleased look on his face. A pleased, fatherly, proud look. A look that changed  when he saw Chakotay with her.

 "Ethan, I'd like you to meet Captain Chakotay. Chakotay, my friend Ethan Bellamy."

 Ethan rose to his feet and shook Chakotay's hand. The contact was very brief.

 "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Bellamy."

 Kathryn glanced sharply at Chakotay, then frowned when she saw his stern look, the way Chakotay's jaw tightened. And Ethan...

 "So this is Chakotay."

 Kathryn turned to Chakotay, felt suddenly she had to apologise for Ethan's lack of manners.

 "Ethan's been wondering about you, Chakotay."

 "Same as I have," Chakotay responded, not taking his eyes off Ethan. "I believe Kathryn lives with you on your property..."

 

"If you'll excuse us, Chakotay, Kathryn has promised me the next dance," Ethan said evenly.

 Chakotay simply nodded as Ethan led her on to the floor.

 "You never asked me," she berated him as he took her in his arms.

 "Now, Janeway, act like you've never acted before. I would like to kill Chakotay for that graceless innuendo back there, but I realise he's not much of a man and he doesn’t deserve my giving him any consideration. I told you this morning - "

 "I know what you told me this morning. But Ethan, if you'll listen to me - "

 "I know you still love him, sweetheart, but we're fish in a glass tank here. Your every movement is being watched, analysed, and discussed. Tomorrow it will be all over the Federation that Admiral Janeway brought Chakotay back to Earth to keep him near her, and him a married man."

 "You're despicable, Bellamy."

 "I know. And I hate being despicable. Now, honey, enjoy the dance, will you? You can pretend I'm Chakotay."

 But she didn't have to pretend.

 She felt small against Ethan's wiry frame, small and secure. Something in her head exploded; she didn't know what it was. She only felt, sensed, assimilated smell, texture, the touch of his hand against the small of her back, his breath that fanned just above her head. If she tilted her head towards him, his chin would scrape against her cheek. A hundred thousand little electrical shocks passed through her body, so many that they merged as one giant wave of rapture touching all her nerve endings.

 Pretend? She was lost in Ethan's embrace. Lost and intoxicated and breathless.

 She was where she knew she wanted to be. Ethan appeared unaware of the impact his closeness was having on her; he still harboured the belief that it was Chakotay she wanted, Chakotay she needed. She didn't care if Ethan still believed that. The moment was too great, too important to care about anything else but the fact that she was in his arms, not as the sick Janeway whom he'd nursed back to health, not as the friend who held his hand when he called her in the night, not as the woman scorned needing his solace, but as a woman.

 She prayed that the music - Someone To Watch Over Me - would last forever. She prayed that it played in an endless time loop so that she could remember the touch of him, his smell, the timeless rhythm of the dance to which they seemed to move as one, his breathing that rasped the moment her cheek touched his chin, the glimpse she stole of his face, the closed eyes - to relive it over and over and over.

 She melted into him and she wondered absently if the sound she heard was a moan from him as if he too experienced their joining, the lovemaking in sheer movement across the floor. They were two and they were one.

 "Ethan…" she murmured against his chest, her head swimming.

 "Shhh…" he responded, but she felt his lips against her hair.

 And all she could do was bury herself against him, oblivious of all eyes on them, of envy, of caring, of blessing bestowed upon them. She was in Ethan's arms and drowning in his nearness. They swayed gently to the music, and when it finally ended, Ethan whispered in her ear, "Now that was a wonderful performance, Janeway."

 And for a moment Kathryn felt like murdering Ethan Bellamy.

 ****************

 At a table where Mike and Carmen Ayala, Tom Paris and B'Elanna were sitting, the four of them gaped at the two on the floor. Other couples had paused in their dancing to gaze at their former captain and her companion. Chakotay had walked back to his table to join his wife and while Seven was engaged in conversation with Susan Nicoletti, Chakotay couldn't take his eyes off Kathryn and Ethan.

 "So, Mike, you have all the dirty low-down on the two people dancing there. They are perfect!" B'Elanna breathed. "Who _is_ that glorious hunk of a man? His white hair gives him an air of detachment, class…"

 "I don't know much - " replied Mike.

 B'Elanna snorted.

 "Don't _know_?! Look at them! They're perfect, and making love on the floor, too, if you ask me."

 "Heard she was vacationing with Commander Bellamy last year," Tom said, pulling B'Elanna closer to him.

 "Yes."

 "Is that all, Ayala?" demanded B'Elanna.

 "That is all."

 "You're not going to get _anything_ out of Mike, B'Elanna," Tom grumbled. "My father made damn sure he selected an aide who would _never_ talk out of the house."

 "So, what else do you know, Mike? They're lovers? He sends her flowers? She sends him flowers? What?" Tom insisted, finding his wife's enthusiasm catching.

 "Carmen? Aren't you going to help us?" B'Elanna asked as she turned in her direction, giving Carmen a pleading look.

 Carmen smiled her gentle smile. She loved Admiral Janeway and had a very high regard for Commander Bellamy, even if he seemed to her too much of a cynical, hard type of character not easy to reach. But she and Michael knew how much Admiral Janeway meant to Commander Bellamy, even if it looked to them that he would never admit the influence the beautiful admiral had on him. What they knew about Commander Bellamy they never divulged to anyone. She didn't know much herself, but Michael, working so closely with Admiral Janeway, was privy to a good many things that Carmen knew had to remain highly classified.

 What happened on Dorvan had spread like wildfire after Admiral Janeway left so suddenly without saying goodbye to her hosts. There had been a lot of speculation, and some hinted that Chakotay had had a brief liaison with Admiral Janeway during her stay on Dorvan. Others said that she couldn't leave Chakotay alone and wanted him now that he was married. Whatever it was that happened left Admiral Janeway too quiet and looking pale.

 After that, on their way home,  Admiral Janeway had cloistered herself on the USS Gainsbourg for the entire journey to Earth, and when they all disembarked, she had disappeared straight away. Just in the way Admiral Janeway departed from Dorvan was evidence that there had been something that happened between her and Chakotay. It was too sudden, and if they hadn't gone themselves that morning to bid Chakotay and Annika goodbye, they would never have had an opportunity to do so, because there had been no one to see them off. She had thought that Chakotay and Admiral Janeway were great friends, that he would at least have come to say goodbye. Admiral Janeway hadn't waited. They left in a hurry.

 Michael had told her afterwards that Admiral Janeway must have gone to her new friend who lived in Oregon. She had spent her vacation there with this friend whom, after she had asked very insistently, she had learned was called Ethan Bellamy. Carmen had come to know more of Admiral Janeway and met Commander Bellamy. What was clear to her - and Carmen gave a silent sigh of exasperation - was that they belonged together and they didn't know it.

 Now everyone could see how close Admiral Janeway and Commander Bellamy were as they looked at the dancing couple.

 "He's made her whole again," she told B'Elanna, a little shyly.

 "That I can see," replied B'Elanna. "She's over Chakotay at last, Tom. Thank goodness for that."

 "But old Chak isn't over Kathryn Janeway. Sorry if you can't see that, but it's clear to me. He's happy with Seven, isn't he? Happy being a husband and daddy, right?"

 "Yeah," said Mike Ayala at last. "Yeah...right."

 "Yeah? So why is he gawking at her right now? Like he's thinking he can't live another day without her?"

 *****************

 "Kathryn..."

 Kathryn gave a sigh. It was cold outside, and standing so close to the French window of the farmhouse transmitted the chill to her so that she shivered. Yet it was a clear night, with the moon a great big disc that appeared suspended in the sky.

 Ethan stood behind her. She flinched when he touched her arm, her movement eliciting an expletive from him. It had taken every ounce of her control not to show her distress at his remark at the anniversary ball. They had walked back to their table to loud applause from the crew, and the rest of the evening she enjoyed herself, with Ethan's words ever near the surface of her consciousness.

 And like always, he had sensed instantly the change in her mood. Later, they had again danced and it had been a little easier, though she had been as constantly aware of his nearness as the thought that he knew she wasn't happy. She had made her speeches and left with the promise that the anniversary would become an annual celebration. They stayed 'til almost the last, making a few last minute arrangements with Icheb for the Academy's open day.

 In the shuttle, she had been quiet and Ethan looked boorish.

 Now, an hour after their return to Indiana she still smarted, though Ethan had attempted to make conversation. She hadn't felt like talking to him and had been unable to relax, unsettled by the break in communication between them.

 "I'm not returning to Beavers Lodge with you tomorrow," she said softly. She felt like crying, her heart still too raw after what he had reduced their dancing to at the Memorial Hall.

 "I upset you..."

 "Yes."

 "For which I am deeply sorry."

 His hands gripped her shoulders gently. Sighing, she leaned back against him. She couldn't see his face, but his remorse was in the tone of his voice. It was a register lower, hoarser, almost not Ethan.

 "I never want to hurt you, Kathryn," he continued. "Never. I don't want to see the pain in your eyes again, and tonight, after..." His voice trailed to a sigh. "After my damnable sick excuse of a thank you for a wonderful dance, I saw for a moment the same pain in your eyes as the day you returned from Dorvan. Only this time, I put it there..."

 "You hurt me," she couldn't help saying, her heart overflowing with pain.

 "God, Kathryn...forgive me..."

 Ethan's remorse was so heart-felt that she blinked, trying to hold back the tears. It pained her that they weren't talking, that they argued, that they weren't happy. She couldn't lose him too.

 "I want us to remain friends."

 "You know they think we're lovers."

 She turned to stand fully in his embrace, her arms round his waist, giving a little moan of pleasure when he pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. She breathed a sigh of relief.

 "We can pretend..." she said softly, feeling the same waves of pleasure coursing through her that had claimed her during their dance.

 Ethan stilled. She heard him swear again.

 "So you're not going to let me forget my transgression tonight."

 "No. I enjoyed dancing with you. Ethan, I - "

 "Sometimes men say things only as a way to protect themselves."

 "What were you protecting?"

 His eyes bore into hers. Then they narrowed, yet she was aware, acutely, of a new sensation, one of trembling in anticipation at what he was going to do or say next.

 "Why do you want to know?"

 "So I don't have to pretend."

 Ethan groaned as he pulled her tighter in his embrace and when she lifted her face, she was surprised to see the deep gleam in his eyes. An unnatural gleam, one that smouldered like red coals in a hearth on a winter night. One that was in complete contrast to the look he had given her after their dance. A look that showed promise and which made her heart pound erratically, painfully, hopefully.

 Very slowly Ethan lowered his head, her vision blurred by tears as his mouth met hers in a searing, wondrous kiss.

 ****************

 END CHAPTER 15


	16. AS TIME GOES BY

* * *

 

Two weeks  later.

 Kathryn watched as Icheb and Ethan mingled with the crowd at the Academy open day for senior students. Icheb, always painfully correct yet strangely shy, and Ethan, the quintessential loner who had to learn, like taking baby steps, to become comfortable in a crowd again. Ethan, bless his heart, was trying very hard to be natural, but his hair was such a distinctive feature that it was impossible not to be noticed. She could see how he endured their stares  - good-naturedly, she hoped - as well as their unabashed curiosity, not only in him as Ethan Bellamy, but as the companion of Admiral Janeway. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and her heart spread with warmth. She was proud to be seen with him, proud to be his companion, just plain proud of him.

 She had learned as much from him as he had from her, and during the last months, since his restoration, she had allowed him to read her ship's logs and some private logs.

"You remind me of Odysseus, Janeway."

She had grown sad when he said that.

 "Many times in the beginning, during the debriefings and court-martial, I felt like him, like I wanted to wash up on a distant shore and just lie there at the water's edge. I wanted the water to lift me and carry me away again where I didn't have to move, to think..."

 "I understand that a man can reach a point where his journey becomes futile, where the destination no longer matters because such a man has lost faith. What kept you going, Kathryn?"

 "My duty, I suppose," she had replied, reflectively. "Being responsible for a decision I made in the first place, of stranding my crew in the Delta Quadrant..." A long silence had ensued in which Ethan waited, waited for her to speak. "Regretting that action, having to learn to believe that it was the right thing I had done. Mostly, I suppose, believing in my decisions. I made a promise, Ethan, that I would bring them home."

 "It wore you down, but I can see it never robbed you of your humanity. I am amazed at what you have achieved. So much, so many adventures, so many times you fought tooth and nail for the crew's survival. Reaching…breaking point…"

 "Well, it's over and I don't think I miss it."

 "Oh, yes, you do. After seven years of intense exploration, doing double shifts and triple shifts and facing danger around every corner, you come home with suddenly nothing to do. You find yourself in a vacuum of silence, thinking that you will grow mad. Now you do nothing except sit behind a desk and send me flowers. The Legend of Voyager leading a simple life."

 "Ethan! I'm happier now than I have been in a while, thanks to you. Don't spoil it. You want to read about the female Q?"

 "Ah, Picard's pain-in-the-neck Omnipotent had a mate?"

 "Hmmm..."

 "And she found herself cuckolded because Q fell for you."

 "Ethan, dear..."

 "Yes, Kathryn, dear?"

 "Men are cuckolded, not women."

 "My point exactly."

 She had fallen neatly into the trap Ethan had set for her, without him ever mentioning Chakotay's name. Kathryn remembered how unhappy Chakotay had felt at the time and how Q ridiculed him. Those days…her fortunes were so inextricably tied with Chakotay's.

 Ethan had relished reading Voyager's adventures when he wasn't writing or playing the cello or walking the dogs.

 "This will make for a good story..." he had said one day.

 "What?"

 "Here, your experiences with the Vidiians. Very advanced medical technology. B'Elanna Torres becoming two completely separate persons - fully Klingon and fully human. Think of the terrible struggle for identity! I'd call the story Face Value."

 "You're thinking of a new story? Already?"

 "Well, Janeway, just reading about your absolutely astounding adventures... I was hoping they would inspire something."

 "Oh."

 "Oh?"

 "Yes. There I was, thinking you'd go with me to the holosuites at Headquarters so we could play Velocity..."

 "Soon, Janeway. Don't tempt me from my hiding place."

 "And no using me as a sounding board for your latest story idea?"

 "Not…yet…"

 Yes, it had been good being with Ethan. He was still as acerbic as ever, but with her it was always softened by his tenderness. She wanted him no other way. These days, her heart fluttered whenever she thought of him.

 Ethan had been overwhelmed by Icheb's request that he represent the young cadet.

 Now Ethan and Icheb were together, like father and son.

 Icheb was indeed like a son to her and her heart had burst with pride when she and Ethan had viewed his papers as well as listened to men like Admiral Paris singing his praises. Already so far ahead in the academic field, Icheb's science award was well deserved.

 Ethan looked…fatherly, she decided. Fatherly and proud. Rourke would have been eighteen now and if he had chosen to enter the Academy, would have conducted himself with the same pride she saw Icheb displaying towards Ethan. They had become close since Ethan's radical transformation from Borg to human.

 The night of the anniversary ball and dinner, when she had seen Icheb leave their table, Ethan had looked surprised to the point of distress. Late that evening at  her home, he had told her how he had felt 'damned proud' to be honoured in such a way.

 "There's a strange pull..." he had mused.

 "Icheb's nanoprobes are in your body, Ethan," she had replied sagely, to which he was quick to retort.

 "Indeed, Admiral. As you very well know, some of my blood was transfused into young Icheb. I believe you used the term _commensalism_ …"

 "You don't seem terribly put out by it. You are both benefiting, Bellamy. Don't look at me like that."

 "Like what?"

 "Like you want to say 'thank you…'"

 "Did I mention that I like Icheb, with or without nanoprobes and sharing of blood?"

 It had been good talking again. He had been sitting on her bed; she had been drowsy with fatigue and the excitement of the evening, one that had threatened to end in disaster. They had literally kissed and made up, for she had been terrified of losing another friend, of losing what they had. Ethan, she guessed, had felt the same and his remorse had been real.

 She had been walking on a cloud since the night they kissed at her home in Indiana. Ethan had groaned his pleasure in their touches that seemed to last forever. Hungry mouths and hands that roamed over hungry bodies, unable to assuage their passion, kept urging for more. She had tasted him, the sense of drowning so strong that he must have felt the same. They had clung to one another in a stormy sea. He was her anchor and she was his. Her fingers had caressed his silver hair as he kept her imprisoned - joyous prison! - in his arms. Soft gasps and moans followed by the unbelievably gentle caress of his lips against hers, against her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, her neck, then finally, claiming her mouth again. She had wanted to die from the pleasure of those heated touches. When she had wanted more, to touch him where his arousal had pressed against her, Ethan stopped her, his hand gently covering hers.

 His eyes had been ablaze with passion, yet they were tempered by an unknown force, a spring deep inside him that demanded caution, or consideration, or concern... She had marveled that he could exercise such control.

 "I need for us to have time, Kathryn," he had said in a low, hoarse voice. "Let me have time, okay?"

 In retrospect, she had been glad that they decided not to consummate what was still so new, so unexplored. She could understand Ethan's reticence, even her own, for the shift in her affections from Chakotay to Ethan was still evolving. She still valued her friendship with Chakotay, still needed that contact between them. Was friendship something that would be sacrificed because she didn't love Chakotay anymore? She was still filled with ambivalent feelings, and although she knew where she wanted to go with Ethan, she didn't want to lose Chakotay as a friend.

 "I'd like for us to be absolutely sure too," she had said, voicing his thoughts, sensing that a commitment such as he was envisaging was a lifelong one, one without the baggage of past relationships clouding their union.

 She thought how she had been in love with Chakotay for so long, and look where it had ended: on a heap of ash. She thought that loving Chakotay forever was going to be the cross she would bear for the rest of her life.

 It wasn't a chance she wanted to take again, and Ethan, bless him, felt the same. She had a sneaking  suspicion that he thought she still had residual feelings for Chakotay and he had been right. A friendship was a precious thing and she didn't want to lose that with Chakotay.

 During the past two weeks, she and Ethan had explored their new dimension, and when they had gone back to Beaver's Lodge, Ethan had immediately sought his cello, cloaked himself around it like a long lost love and stirringly played Haydn and Boccherini for her until he was spent.

 The weekend of the anniversary ball, they had decided to remain at Indiana and had collected the dogs the following morning from the Ayala boys, a move that had the younger boy Peter, almost in tears. But the dogs had been excited as they spotted Ethan and refused to be separated from their new master.

 On the Sunday afternoon, she had decided to visit her mother's grave.

 Kathryn smiled tenderly as she remembered that day at the cemetery. In the distance they could see a lone figure standing at the graves of her parents.

 "Who is that there?" Ethan had asked.

 But Kathryn had recognised her immediately, drawn to the hauntingly familiar outline, the hair golden bronze like her own. The  woman's eyes, Kathryn knew, were liquid brown, like their mother's…

 "Phoebe…"

 Her heart had raced as she slowly, cautiously approached her sister while Ethan had remained in the background with the dogs. Phoebe had appeared quite forlorn and when she had looked up, her eyes were heavy with unshed tears. The small bouquet of white flowers she had clutched in her hands was gripped tighter, so tightly that the blooms crushed and broke from their stems, drifting soundlessly to the rich turf.

  _Oh, God… Don't let her keep hating me…_

 A long silence had ensued. Phoebe had looked down once, and Kathryn imagined she was staring at the inscription on the gravestone. Then she gazed with her teary, sad, sad eyes at Kathryn and her lips had trembled, as if she were going to burst into tears.

 "Mom wouldn't have wanted me to hate you…" Phoebe had said, her voice hollow, pained. There were dark circles under her eyes. She had looked tired, too thin, hungry…

 "And Phoebe?" Kathryn asked after a heavy pause, holding her breath. "What does Phoebe want?".

 "I…have been without rest the last year. I kept seeing your eyes that day I lashed out at you, how they shattered. Later, I thought it wasn't your eyes that broke into pieces, but your heart."

 "I am sorry, Phoebe, that you have suffered too. I didn't know…"

 It felt as if fear had begun crawling all over her skin again as she waited for her sister to respond.

 "I was the one who didn't understand. I still don't understand much, but please…I don't hate you. I can't. I - "

 "What is it, Phoebe?"

 "I have no family. I need…you…"

 "You have me, Phoebe. You've always had me…"

 Kathryn looked down suddenly, unable to bear the pain in her sister's eyes. The petals that had drifted to the ground blurred as her eyes burned with unshed tears. How was it that she had never noticed that they were strewn in the formation of a cross? A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped at it with the back of her hand.

 "You don't know how it was, Kathryn. She - " There was a catch in Phoebe's voice, a sob. "It's hard living in your shadow… Later I pretended there wasn't a shadow, but I was fooling myself. The shadow followed me everywhere I went, every time I saw Mother. She didn't see me, you know? Mother wanted you… I was just an artist living like a bohemian…"

 Kathryn had felt a tightness in her chest, the darkness closing in again. She recalled the day Phoebe had destroyed her, remembering how she couldn't emerge from the shadows. Those demons rushed back at her, taunting her with tentacles that touched her face with malicious intention. Then she had turned slowly to look for Ethan. The moment her eyes had found him, her breathing had settled again. His presence had been reassuring. She faced her sister once more, the strength returning to her.

 "I would have given anything, Phoebe, anything, if you had only smiled at me when I came home, if you had welcomed me the way I saw other sisters hug. I know I should have kept in contact with you, never let you out of my sight. I too, should have known…"

 Harsh words had been said that day when they beamed down from Voyager. Words that had eaten into Phoebe's conscience, it seemed. They were alike, in that sense. Words said in haste, hurtful words never meant to be spoken, then to repent in the aftermath of that painful exchange. They were sisters, of the same blood. She should have known that Phoebe struggled too. She should have gone after Phoebe. But then, those first months… Her world had been dark. She had been recovering…

 "My behaviour towards you…it was unpardonable, Kathryn. I don't know how you can forgive me. I have lived with the thought that you never will.  Mother... I have tried to make my peace, but it eludes me."

 Kathryn thought how Ethan had said the same thing to her.

 "Your behaviour was understandable. I would dearly love for us to be sisters again, Phoebe. I have missed you. You are right. Mom wouldn't have wanted us to be enemies, to hate one another."

 "I’ve missed you too. Every day. But I was too proud, too afraid to make contact again. The last year… I have been miserable and lonely. Forgive me, Kathryn. Those words… They were the ramblings of a jealous, deranged sister."

 "No. They were the words that spoke of a world of hurt, of a grieving sister. What is there to forgive? If I cannot gift you with that blessing, then I am nothing."

 Phoebe had fallen into her arms; dry-eyed, they had hugged, briefly, fiercely. When they had broken apart, Kathryn had taken Phoebe's hand and she had seen how the light had returned to her sister's eyes. She herself felt lighter.

 "Come, there is someone I'd like you to meet."

 And so Phoebe had met Ethan and the moment they shook hands, Phoebe declared, "I saw you…"

 To which Ethan's mouth curved mockingly when he replied, "Must have been my hair."

 "No, you were most interested in one of my paintings.  The exhibition…Paris. Four years ago…"

 "Ah, Paris. Bellamy was coaxed out of hiding by the work of a gifted artist."

 "I did? I am?"

 Phoebe glowed, her face alive at last, as Kathryn remembered her in the days of their youth. She remembered how she had been the one envious of her sister's gift, how she burned to paint like Phoebe, how Phoebe had won every award for fine art since her sixth year… Now, Phoebe believed she had no gift.

 "You'd better believe it," Ethan had replied. "I viewed a painting you did of your mother and sister. Very telling..."

 "It was the only one I didn't sell."

 Phoebe had looked at her, shadows flitting in her eyes again as she remembered something painful. But soon the shadows were gone and joy replaced her grief. In that moment Kathryn knew that it was possible that Gretchen Janeway was looking down on her two daughters, at last friends again.

 "I tried to buy it," Ethan had said, "but you wouldn't let anyone touch it."

 A smile transformed Phoebe's pale features.

 "Kathryn, your friend is sensational."

 "I know, Phoebe. I know…"

 "The painting is yours, Kathryn."

 Kathryn had taken the painting and positioned it above the hearth in the lounge of the old farmhouse. They had spent a few hours together, precious hours in which they bonded again as sisters.  However, Phoebe was still reluctant to talk much of the years Kathryn had been away, but she had been open enough to declare how she had missed the connection between them, that there were things they could do together again. Kathryn was hopeful that they could talk. She had been given an open invitation to visit Phoebe in Paris, and Phoebe had promised to visit them at Beaver's Lodge.

 Phoebe had left on the Sunday night for Paris. Kathryn had slept peacefully for the first time in months.

 *

 Kathryn was brought back to the present when she heard Ethan and Icheb approaching, their conversation reaching her as if from a great distance. She smiled as she took in their pleased looks, happy for both of them that they'd become so close. Icheb had sensed that he would bond with Ethan, and Kathryn wondered absently if this was destiny playing a part in Ethan's healing. Icheb's own parents were far away, no longer interested in their son whom they'd used as a time bomb, and had wanted to use him as such again, against the Borg. Every fibre in Kathryn's being had cried out in outrage against such disgrace and violation of their son's rights. Ethan had been just as outraged when he heard Icheb's story.

 "I think now is as good a time as any, young man," Ethan replied to something Icheb said as they stopped in front of her.

 "Right now?"

 "Well, you asked and you know Admiral Janeway. You started this, you finish it."

 "I…guess, I did," Icheb replied, looking embarrassed and strangely proud.

 "So…what is it you two want to ask me?" Kathryn asked.

 "No, not me," Ethan said quickly, pointing to Icheb. "He has a question."

 "And I assume you know what it is?"

 "Kathryn..."

 "Okay, Icheb, what is your question?"

 Icheb looked flustered. Was he blushing? When he had asked her to represent him at the open day, he had been direct, unwavering. Was he catching up with being human? Ethan jabbed Icheb in the ribs. The young man hiccoughed.

 "Commander Bellamy has given his approval. Now I await yours, Admiral Janeway."

 "Eh?"

 "I would very much like to adopt you as my parents, Admiral Janeway and Commander Bellamy. See, I have none here in the Alpha Quadrant… Indeed, I have none. Since James has adopted Lieutenant Gilmore as his mother and calls her such, the thought of having someone... Well, I thought I would - "

 "Icheb!"

 "Admiral?"

 "Yes. Okay?"

 Could the handsome young man look even more attractive in his confusion and joy? He gave a relieved laugh and touched her arm.

 "Okay."

 ***************

 May 2380

 Spring was in the air and Oregon was springing to life. Everywhere around them were signs of birth and rebirth - flowers appeared to peep out from their crown of leaves to confirm that it was time to show their full bloom. If she closed her eyes and cocked her head just a little, she could hear the beavers splashing about in the stream nearby. Above Elgar's Adagio charmingly enticed from the strings, the woodland larks joined in harmonious counterpoint, giving the movement greater, deeper spirit. Even the trees appeared pert, greener, shaking their branches so stealthily one had to look hard to detect their movement, yet one knew that they swayed to the cadence of the music.

 Mostly, Kathryn realised, it was the smell of grass, rain soaked grass bruised by the hooves of deer that wandered occasionally on the property, that instilled in her peace.

 She thought of Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, feeling like the poet who came back after so many years to seek out the place most revered by him, the place that most imbued him with beauty, reminded him most of peacefulness, of rest, of his childhood, of good memories.

 Somehow, Beaver's Lodge had become that for her, and not only because it was Ethan's home. She had woken up from a deep, dark, tormented dream to sense the beauty of this place, the first light in her gloomy existence.

 They were now the proud parents of two grown dogs they called Conor and Keira, as well as one Starfleet cadet – Icheb – who had decided that the last name of Janeway-Bellamy sounded very distinguished. While they hadn’t formally validated their relationship, Icheb swore that it would only be a matter of time until he and his parents formed a closer union. Kathryn loved Icheb and if anything, Ethan loved him even more. Ethan had been a father before and the capacity for loving Icheb as his own son was as intense and great as it would have been had Rourke and Piers still been alive.

 Ethan was playing, bent in deep concentration over his cello. Today it was Elgar and the bow slid effortlessly over the strings, eliciting the mellow, silky tones that always moved her, more so than a violin. There was so much character in the sound of Elgar that filled the air and absorbed her senses. Ethan never looked up, even when her footsteps sounded on the wooden floorboard as she entered the deck through the French doors to sit in her chair in the opposite corner. She was reading _Songs of a Wayfarer_ again, and now, after he had told her his story of Mel and the boys, of his assimilation, of their fate, of Mel's lack of understanding of and interest in his art, the novel took on a new meaning. Every paragraph laid new emphasis on the key character's quest for understanding, to have the deepest emotion within him understood. The novel was Ethan's story, she guessed, and with it came the realisation that it would achieve greater dimension if the reader knew the man.

 To Ethan, the man and the artist were inseparable, and to understand the artist, she had to know the man. It afforded her an insight into Henry F. Marchand that was rare, a deep privilege, an honour which so far, he still had accorded only to her. She smiled tenderly as he let the bow caress the Adagio - the third, balmy movement - so effortlessly. If anyone else was going to know about Henry F. Marchand, it was Phoebe. She had sensed something more to Ethan Bellamy than just a former Starfleet officer who had told her that her Mother and Daughter painting was more insightful than she had intended.

 "Kathryn, I've read Henry F. Marchland's work. I could swear he's Ethan Bellamy..."

 "Perhaps you should ask him," she had told her sister.

 "His insight is...painful, if you know what I mean. And no one knows where Henry Marchand is. I've tried..."

 Many had tried. Ethan's publishers remained silent about his identity. Now, several months after their reconciliation, Phoebe had hit the mark.

 "I'm just going to pretend he is. There's no other way," she told Kathryn.

 "Phoebe, he doesn't want anyone to know..."

 A light of understanding had gone up in Phoebe's eyes.

 "I'm honoured to know him, Kathryn," Phoebe had stated quietly. "You have my confidence..."

 Now with spring in the air, Ethan had been restless, finding calm only in his music and the continuation of his novel. He was over the critical period when, in previous years, he feared his mutation into a Borg drone. She sensed his unease, and through her comfort, her presence, her quiet reassurance, he had overcome his restlessness. Despite the EMH's guarantee that his recovery was permanent, Ethan had dreaded spring. But he was over it now. Together, they treasured their most special moments in evenings when they lay together on his bed, or hers, just holding hands, but often exchanging feather-light kisses. Ethan never spoke; his joy about his recovery, the relief that he wouldn't change into something else was shared mostly through his music. One morning she had woken up - it was 0500 - and heard him play on the deck. She had pulled on her robe, stepped into her soft slippers and lounged against the jamb of the French door, watching him. The light had just touched the horizon, swelling from deep indigo and gradually painting the great canvas of the sky deep blue.

 He had been playing Variations on a theme by Paganini, the upbeat sound, the playful mood which at times characterised the piece were more an indication of his state of mind than anything else. More than ever, she had realised how Mélisande could have felt left out.

 Kathryn sighed. In the last months, Ethan had refused to share with her anything of his progress with _The Raging Moon._

 "I'm doing a major rewrite..." was all he had told her.

 "What?" She had been shocked, unable to grasp why he would do that.

 "You heard me, Janeway. I do drafts, then I do drafts until I'm satisfied something works."

 "But h-how could you change something already so good?" she had stammered.

 "Janeway," Ethan began, "do you know how many scenes I took out of _A Thousand Voices_? And _Warrior Mine_? You don't? Let me tell you. _A Thousand Voices_ had fifteen scenes and two chapters taken out, and not because the publishers demanded it. I did. It's the creative process, sweetheart. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to take out something you thought should have been left in. What you've seen and shared with _The Raging Moon_ was only the first draft, which I, the writer, might completely rewrite as I deem fit or appropriate to the situation."

 "In other words," she had countered, finding her equilibrium after his shock announcement, "you're waiting for something to happen?"

 "In a manner of speaking. _The Raging Moon_ is waiting for scenes to write themselves."

 "Never heard of such bunkum," she had told him, only to be graced by a sardonic stare, a lift of his ubiquitous whisky snifter and a nod.

 "Same characters?" she had persisted after a short pause.

 "Yes. Different destinies..."

 And with that she had to be content. While she had been privy to the characters he created for the story, their lives and loves, their destinies had always remained a mystery to her. Yet, changing their destinies, changing in fact, the story, shattered her for a few moments, leaving her to stew in her own acute disappointment.

 She had to realise that she wasn't the one writing the story.

 "I'll let you read the story when it's complete, Kathryn," he said in an attempt to appease her. "In manuscript form."

 "Before publication?" she had asked stupidly.

 "Before publication," had been his cryptic response.

 She had snorted angrily and then had gone to her room to paint, the result of her fuming splashed in confusion all over the canvas. Ethan had come in hours later and looked at the painting.

 "You're mad at me."

 She had been sitting on the bed staring at the muddle that was her creation, wishing the angry swipes of colour would just go away by themselves.

 "Not anymore," had been her dour reply.

 ”By the sound of your voice, you need to give your canvas a few extra strokes."

 He hadn't anticipated that she'd throw the small mug she had been holding, and it flew like a projectile through the air before it hit him against the shoulder. He had given a mock cry.

 "Yes, definitely a few more strokes. You missed a spot here...and here..."

 The next moment she had flown off the bed and lunged at him. Ethan had just laughed as he picked her effortlessly off the floor, calmly walked back to the bed and thrown her down on it. Green, green eyes had gazed hotly into hers, the moment lingering until he breathed at last, his voice almost sounding hollow.

 "I still see your warrior there in your painting, Kathryn..."

 "Maybe I'm mad at him too," she had responded unkindly.

 He had gotten up abruptly and left her room. She only saw him the next morning, at breakfast, where he had been sitting at the table, drinking whisky. Not saying a word, he pointed to the place opposite him. He had fixed her breakfast. She had known that afterwards, just as she had known that silently, they would gather their climbing gear and head for Mount Coniston, elevation two thousand metres, with its rugged steep cliffs, crevices, and narrow ridges.

 And so they had made it to the top of the mountain, where they found a small flat surface to sit down. When her breathing had settled at last, the burning sensation of exertion finally relieved, she had looked at him. Ethan had been staring over the grand vista that was Curry County - beautiful, rugged, elemental.

 "I'm sorry about last night," she had said quietly, not looking at him.

 "Yeah, I'm sorry too, Kathryn."

 Only then he had turned, his eyes meeting hers in a tender gaze, a smile relieving his stern features.

 ***********

 She was only aware that Ethan had stopped playing when a shadow fell across her.

 "I never played Elgar better, Kathryn," he said quietly, yet his eyes were smiling. "Your presence calms the demons in me."

 "You're in a good mood today, Ethan."

 "And you're going to spoil it by saying you have to go back to Headquarters and do the Admiral thing you have to do there."

 Kathryn rose from her chair and hugged him, her arms closing tightly around him as she rested her head against his chest. His heartbeat was rhythmic, blessedly real and normal compared to those weeks a little more than a year ago when he had been a different being. She loved the sense of normality, of peace that radiated from Ethan, but he was right. She had to leave, and not just to Headquarters.

 "I'm leaving for Kedron II and I told you that last week," she said, her voice smothered against his soft cashmere sweater. She pressed against him, smiling at the way he stiffened in response.

 "You couldn't take me with you?" he asked gruffly.

 When she lifted her head, she saw how his eyes smouldered. Her breathing sharpened, became a little uneven, catching on a tiny sob. Her senses were reeling, and she had trouble remaining focused. Ethan had to stay home.

 "Admirals fly alone, didn't you know? I take only Mike Ayala with me - "

 "Lucky man."

 "I can't kiss him like I kiss you, honey," she told him as she pressed closer, waiting for his lips to descend on hers in a long, sweet, lingering caress that left her gasping. Soon, she knew, she was going to change the parameters of their relationship. A few times they had come dangerously close to making love, when either Ethan or she had had to pull themselves back to reality, to their commitment. But Chakotay was receding and receding fast. She was on a good footing with him and Annika, and their little baby Kathryn was thriving. She didn't want to wait anymore even though she could understand Ethan's reservations. Now she was leaving for Headquarters within hours and then embarking on a two week mission to Kedron II. She wanted desperately to be intimate with him, so desperately.

"I guess not," Ethan muttered close to her face, "but I'll miss you."

Kathryn closed her eyes as she swayed against him, feeling like she was drowning. Her hips ground into his, responded to his own need.

 "Ethan..."

 "Hmmm?"

 "Goddammit, Ethan, I'll miss you too. I wish..."

 He held her away from him, the loss of connection so sudden and so acutely painful that she gave a tiny cry of consternation. But Ethan's eyes that bore like a burning shaft through her, looked full of hope, of anticipation. He was waiting for her...

 "What do you wish, sweet Kathryn?" he asked softly.

 "That we didn't have to wait..."

 "You don't know how long I've waited... God, Kathryn, you are my very breath!"

 Ethan pulled her hard to him, burying her face against him. He gave a deep groan as he ran his fingers through her hair. She thought she heard a sob.

 "I need you, like this..." she breathed as she melted into him.

 "You don't know what you're asking," he said gruffly.

 She pressed her hips closer, felt his arousal, drowned for endless moments in a sea of swirling passion. She only felt herself floating for interminable seconds before she realised, as he lay her down on her bed, that he had lifted her and carried her to her bedroom. He towered above her, his hands at her sides as he braced himself for what she knew she wanted, for an imminent attack, for sweet assimilation!

 Outside her bedroom, the dogs whined frantically, then there was silence. Her heart pounded madly.

 "I want this..." she breathed hotly against his cheek.

 Hands pushed and tugged, tore and scratched at clothing that wouldn't separate swiftly enough from their bodies. Their breath mingled, and with aching greed she reached up and kissed him again. Then he grabbed her hands and held them captive this time, above her head, while he rubbed himself against her, his hardness so potent that she arched against him, giving a cry of wanton need. He stilled only a moment before slowly, rhythmically he mimicked joining with her body, the movement punctuated by his words, passionate, crude, provocative.

 "You want this, Janeway, knowing that you're leaving in a few hours and then you'll be gone for weeks. I'm going to make love to you then stew and simmer and feed on the memory. What do you think I am? One for the road? Someone to squeeze you like this...and this - "

 She glared at him in her crazed passion. "Ethan, for God's sake. Shut up and f- "

 After which, time stood still as he hungrily swallowed her expletive, and his mouth merged with hers in a scorching promise of what was to come.

 He tore at the remnants of her clothing; she ripped at his in a frenzied affirmation of liberty, the release of pent-up passion held back too long. She wondered dazedly why she had waited so long and wanted him inside her instantly, swiftly, marking her as his forever. Yet Ethan carried her, stopping them from rushing headlong and heedless over the edge of reason. Somewhere her mind registered that they were wanton and focused at the same time. But reason and all thought fled as they shed the last vestiges of clothing and when she lay completely naked, he stared for several long, heated seconds.

 In great wonder, he traced the outline of her breasts with trembling fingers, his eyes following the movement of his hands which had begun their familiar charting of her body, this time with passion, strange intensity, and not the impersonal touch of healing. Was he the bow and she the instrument delivering heaven's music to him?

 It was like that.

 Ethan gave a strangled cry. Then he buried his face in her bosom and she thought she heard a sob escape him as he lay against her. Only when she moved her hips did he recover, raising his head and in his eyes there was the gleam of victory, but also of equality, of freedom, of...respect.

 No reason existed anymore as skins touched, taut skin which was moist too, meshing with hers. His crotch scoured her hips and she cried out from the sudden, new, exciting wave of ecstasy that flooded her, causing her to become painfully breathless. Her fingers laced his silky white hair, now grown long, pulling him closer and closer, urging the connection to last forever, or to fuse his body roughly, intensely, with hers. It was not enough that he captured her nipple in his mouth and imprisoned her hands as he slid his body along her until he lay, sucking at her, her legs splayed to allow him purchase, that he settle between them like a new fire that had begun to burn from a kiss started months ago in the lounge of her Indiana farmhouse. That fire was now raging, hungry tongues licking all over her sensitised, moist flesh. Parched lips gasped for more, ear lobes tickled in the airy sensation of lightning touches, the hollow in her neck which strangely, passionately, became a centre where Ethan simply connected and ignited more flames. Once her hand strayed between them, down towards her burning core and it was wet, dripping, her fingers laced with her juices.

 "Love me," she whispered brokenly as she felt the tears springing into her eyes, unable, unwilling to stop them, letting them run down her cheeks into her neck as mild comfort for the intense blazing that had taken over.

 And Ethan had only touched her body with his lips. Now, he slid further down, exploring the planes of her body, reaching her navel, finding endless pleasure in flicking his tongue inside the little hollow. It tickled her, sent her mind reeling. When he lifted his head, the loss of connection was again so acute that she cried out in pain.

 "Don't go..."

 "I hungered for you, Kathryn," came his equally hoarse, broken words as he clamped his hands against her thighs and spread her legs further. She welcomed the invasion, the blatant splaying of her thighs as he gripped them. The slight breeze his face created so close to her most sensitive core was all she need to raise her hips to him, to feel his tongue there... She craved instant release for the pleasure and pain mingled and which became excruciating. Already, she had established a rhythm as she moved to have his mouth lick her greedy flesh, burning to be released.

 Another soft cry escaped. She tossed her head, her eyes closing in the heady, intense pleasure as the never-ending crackling flames snaked through her body. She was burning up, up, as she heard him groan, for his tongue had covered her softness, the folds that long ago had readied themselves for his touch. Flicking first, pushing the folds aside, moisture that had begun and now spread, dripping onto him, onto the sheets. Then his mouth captured her swollen fullness, her nub which she knew stood pert as it was swallowed into his depths, caught and then teased into painful, tormenting pleasure.

 It was unbearable; she had never known unbearable to the point of losing all focus, all sense of reality, all consciousness as her lower body exploded into Ethan's mouth. She had felt it coming and had been unable to hold back, to control it and so, her mind became a whirling miasma of liquid fire, pulling her body high off the bed as it yielded its bounty to him. Once, she thought she heard  the thin howling of wind through the branches of the firs. Had she thought that? Only when she swallowed painfully, did she realise it was her screams that filled the quiet air.

 When her body collapsed on the bed, Ethan slid up her slick skin. Before she had time to register his reddened, moist mouth, her smell on him, before he captured her mouth, before she could think, before all human control could be regained which never wanted to be lost, before time itself, it seemed, Ethan's body filled hers.

 It was so swift, so suddenly, so silently, so like a thief, that the moment Ethan's mouth made contact with her and she belatedly registered her own moistness in her nostrils, was the same moment his shaft slid into her sheath, filling her with his heavy heat.

 He broke contact for a brief moment to look at her with eyes ablaze.

 "Witch...."

 Was all he breathed as he began moving rhythmically, her legs pulled up, only to clamp him to her while all the time his eyes never lefts hers. She gasped as he buried his shaft in her to the hilt, pulling out effortlessly to the tip only to thrust hard against her. His grunts exploded from deep in his throat and her fingers had slid away from his matted hair, unable to find grip, finding his shoulders, or cupping his face with desperate hands as they rocked in concert.

 She felt herself lifted again to a plain where unicorns roamed, blessed plain of the rarest dwellers where only Kathryn and Ethan could dwell amongst them. When the moment was upon them and they hurtled over the cliffs or became the thunderous white waves that crashed against the rocks, she heard Ethan's strangled cries, strangled at first, then forceful as he released himself, gave himself over to the power of their passion, riding helplessly in the eye of the thunderous storm.

 Their bodies glistened as they collapsed in the aftermath of their journey. Still joined to her, she felt his shudders, wild at first, then gentle until they finally stopped. Ethan lay over her, spent,  his head to the side, yet one hand cupped her breast, and remained there for an eternity.

 Later, as if he became aware that his weight bore down on her, he shifted, but only so that he could look at her. There was a great tenderness, a great vulnerability about him that she knew she would treasure forever. Her eyes closed as his hand crept gently to her centre where it touched her core, causing her to quiver. She smiled, caught her hand in his and brought it to her mouth, kissing the back of it reverently.

 "I'm going to have to cut short my diplomatic mission to Kedron II," she told him, unable to keep her hand from caressing his face, his mouth, the mouth that had touched every part of her body and charted it for himself.

 "Oh. And why is that?"

 "Now that I know what I can come home to."

 Ethan raised himself on his elbow and gazed at her. With his free hand, he pushed a strand of her hair away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Her heart was racing again, she realised with great wonderment. A throbbing had begun again in her centre, warm and wanting him to claim her again. She stroked his shaft which moments before had pounded heatedly into her and the feeling was so good, so alluring that she slid down and held him in her mouth, working her away around him, playing with her tongue, teasing, sucking gently. She heard him laugh as he shifted to lie on his back.

 Endless minutes she held him, experiencing brilliant flashes as Ethan's body complied to her ministrations. When they were both spent, he pulled her over him. She kissed him deeply, reverently. When she broke off the kiss, once again dazed by the electric contact, her hand laced in his hair, he smiled, his fingers caressing her cheek.

 "Now you know what you can come home to," he said gruffly, and Kathryn thought for a second how enigmatic he sounded.

 *

 It was dark and a cool breeze fanned his body as he slowly edged into wakefulness. He was lying in Kathryn's bed; after glancing quickly to the side, he saw she wasn't there. He lay back, sighing deeply, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He heard the dogs outside the door, but decided to ignore them for the moment as he enjoyed his new memories.

 His body felt used, he realised with some wonder. Used and good. Kathryn must have left already for Headquarters, thinking not to wake him. He didn't mind. What had happened between them was a fitting goodbye, for now. The house was quiet, except for the melodious sounds of a lark, the scuffling of the dogs.

 Quiet?

 He rose quickly, pulled on his torn boxers and padded to the lounge. Music was playing softly, music Kathryn had selected before she left. Ethan smiled as he listened for a few seconds, deeply affected by the significance of the symphonic sounds.

 Mahler's First Symphony.

 ***************

 

_I heard a thousand voices speak;_

_I spoke for thousands more._

_damned to eternal fire_

_my mind was singed forever_

_by those whose lives were lost._

_For mine was the rest of the restless,_

_mine were the dreams_

_when they came rushing to accuse._

_somewhere in the twisting mires of my mind,_

_somewhere in the mists and shadows of my heart -_

_I heard a voice,_

_sensed a touch._

_that voice belonged to you_

_that touch was yours._

_I knew then that my heart_

_would heal_

_because_

_of_

_you._

 *

 He loved Kathryn Janeway.

 He'd loved her when he found her lying half dead on his property. He'd loved her when she opened her eyes and said "I saw you..." He'd loved her when she slammed the bathroom door in his face or when she lay helpless in her embarrassment as he washed her. He loved her in every moment that she lay asleep or when she was awake, looking at him with eyes that shifted with the moon.

 He'd loved her that morning she stood before him with her eyes shattered after her Dorvan visit, and he had wanted to murder the man who put the heartache there.

 Once, many years ago, he had read a poem, written by a man, and he had thought: what man could be so sentimental and so in love that the ends of the earth, or the depths of the oceans or tying a lasso around the moon and presenting it to his beloved could be the things he'd do for her? What man could be so in love that he would build a temple for her? What man could love a woman so much that he would be willing to die for her?

 Yet men, driven to madness by the women they loved, would do that.

 Kathryn had walked into his life.

 No, she didn't walk into his life. She had stumbled like a broken doll on an icy afternoon, her shoes lost, her feet full of scrapes; she had lain on the ground, devoid of any hope. He had picked her up and refused to let her die when she asked him.

 He had seen her at her trial, fighting for her crew, her ideals, her decisions that Starfleet thought were questionable, fighting for the Maquis, for the five remaining crew of the Equinox, one of whom she had almost killed, fighting for everyone but for herself. And he had thought that he had never seen or known of any person, man or woman, who had taken on Starfleet with such courage, fierceness, and loyalty in the face of such trauma and personal loss.

 From that moment on, she stole into his thoughts and his life, invading his breathing to become a part of it. He had taken flight to Beaver's Lodge, hoping that he could leave her behind, hoping that Mark Johnson was wrong, hoping that he would never have to think of her again.

 But Kathryn remained with him.

 What was music and literature if it wasn't life through the creation of art? What was art if it didn't express the torment, the joy, the pain, the suffering, the very essence of those intangibles which to others seemed infinite? And what would literature and music and art of the great men and women in history who created them be if they didn't speak of love everlasting...of love inspired...of love doomed...of love reclaimed?

 Kathryn Janeway loved. She had given her heart to men before and lost what she had given. Knowing her so intimately, he had sensed from the beginning how her heart had become that which she had feared to lose, for in losing her heart, she would lose herself; in losing those whom she loved, she would never repair what had been broken. Her father, whom she loved, died before her very eyes. So had her fiancé, Justin Tighe. She had loved, perhaps, Mark Johnson, and she had lost him too, at a time in her life when loyalty and the very thought of home had become the only things which had kept her committed and dedicated and disciplined to take her marooned crew home. When she lost Mark, she lost a safety net, as she had once told him, Ethan, in a moment of great intimacy and confession when they had both mourned their losses.

 Not long after, he had told her of his sons, of his wife, the beautiful Mélisande, of the Bellerophon, of his friendship with his captain, of becoming Borg with his mind and heart and soul; they had spoken freely of what had been.

 Kathryn had spoken of her mother, of her pain at losing Phoebe whom she found again and the joy of those moments of togetherness, of _family_. She had spoken of Chakotay, and though his own heart had torn from the heat of his jealousy, he had listened to her speak of their friendship. It was a rare union, one in which her Angry Warrior had supported her, stood by her side. One in which she had come to love Chakotay, for didn't great mysteries exist where friendship, a great comradeship, inevitably led to love? And how did that love come like a thief in the night, like a dream in which the dreamer stood surprised?

 

_Love, in a subtle dream disguised,_

_Hath both my heart and me surprised..._

 

Yes, Kathryn had told him about Chakotay, about her love for a great man. And while he had felt that this man had behaved in a less than heroic fashion when Kathryn needed him the most, Kathryn's eyes had shone with pride, with fierce loyalty for Chakotay.

 "We are friends now..." she had said.

 And he, Ethan Bellamy, had wondered how true Kathryn's words had been then.

 In his heart, the doubt gnawed like an ugly, foul-smelling sloth. He had told Kathryn that they should wait. He wanted to believe her, like he believed that he would never turn into a drone again, but the softness of her face as she recounted something she and Chakotay had experienced together on Voyager, made belief hard.

 Kathryn, Voyager and Chakotay.

 Kathryn and Voyager inevitably had to include Chakotay. They were indivisible. But Voyager and the Delta Quadrant were no more. Kathryn was home, and home brought with it its own brand of pain, of trauma and terrible memories.

 He could not begrudge Kathryn what she had with Chakotay on Voyager; he could not begrudge her her continued friendship with the man. He could understand now why someone like Chakotay couldn't let Kathryn go. He had seen the look on Chakotay's face the night of the anniversary ball. He not only looked still in love with Kathryn, despite his marriage to Annika Hansen, Chakotay  was also jealous of Kathryn's involvement with another man. Now he felt the terror of sharing Kathryn with another man, of knowing and experiencing one part of her while another man owned her memories, a corner of her heart, shared a history.

 Ethan sighed. He hated that kind of living intrigue where men fought over a woman. He thought Kathryn too refined, too intellectually above such human shortcomings as wilful deception to be drawn into it. Kathryn had sensed his own loathing and Chakotay's distrust, and she would have found a golden, intuitive way to deal with both men, had he himself not pulled Kathryn into his arms to dance with her. She had been proud to be accompanied by him; she felt secure, confident, super animated when she mingled with her crew.

 And he loved her for it.

 Even when he had been at his most boorish and hurt her intensely, he loved her. Even if she never forgave him for what he had said in moments of great fear that he'd lose her, he would love her. She had melted into his arms and he had been stunned at her generosity, dazed beyond his own understanding that he could hold her not like the sick person who needed him, but as a woman, fiery, full of sexy allure, full of mystique, a woman who intoxicated him, made him crazy with need for her.

 What was it she had wanted to tell him before he, out of his own sense of jealousy, so rudely interrupted her? That she was over Chakotay? That she was ready to move on? That, God help him, her love for Chakotay had died? He had chosen to disbelieve her, to quell her admission out of fear that she would, after all, tell him she wanted to go and break up Chakotay's marriage and live with a man who had a wife and child.

 He hadn't wanted to lose Kathryn and so he too, like men before him, took the fight to the murky back streets to decide the vulgar outcome like the weasel he was.

 That night in the lounge of her Indiana home was the turning point. Kathryn had been open, direct, honest. How could he not love her with every single breath that she took to say those words? How could he not love her like his own breath?

 "I don't want to pretend," she had said.

 And that had set the tone of their relationship. They had kissed, furiously, desperately at times, at others so tenderly that he had wanted to weep.

 His life was over if Kathryn couldn't remain a part of it.

 Hours ago, they had made love.

 He had never, ever, felt such peace that had descended upon him as he lay with her in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Never. He was lost, and in seeking himself and finding where he was dwelling, he discovered that their bodies, through the painful, tender, aching joining, had become one.

 He loved Kathryn Janeway.

 How then, could he explain the strange feeling of foreboding that seemed to settle in the region of his heart? A feeling that he was going to lose her.

 *********

 "There, you're cleared for touch, Commander Bellamy," Doctor Paris said as she snapped the tricorder close.

 "Thank you, Doctor. Thankfully these check-ups are only annual. I must admit I felt some unease this season. And Doctor, please, it's Ethan."

 Elizabeth Paris smiled, looking relieved.

 "Well, thank you! It's only a precaution, as you know, Ethan. But I'm relieved to announce you're fit as a fiddle."

 Ethan smiled as she patted his shoulder, much like a mother would her son. A warmth spread through him. He was no longer so tense among people. Admiral and Doctor Paris had become firm friends, more like family, Ethan realised. Kathryn... Kathryn's image came unbidden. It was all because of her that he was healed.

 "It has been hard, Doctor. Kathryn once told me that she too had been assimilated while on Voyager. I always thought no one could understand. The initial fear...it is very intense. She understood it."

 "Kathryn is a compassionate and sympathetic person. There's nothing she wouldn't do for anyone who needed her. Er...Ethan, if you're not returning to your home immediately, you're welcome to dine with us tonight. Kathryn is still away on her diplomatic mission. I can assure you I make good conversation and promise not to talk shop."

 "Doctor, can I accept your offer once Kathryn has returned from Kedron II? She'll be returning soon in three days' time. Her aide has sent me a communication... You're frowning, Doctor? Is anything the matter?"

 "You miss her, don't you?"

 "Well, Mike Ayala, her aide, informed me they would be delayed."

 "Ethan..."

 He smiled at the doctor's enquiring glance, the way her eyes narrowed, her persistence. His association with Kathryn was very private. With Elizabeth Paris, he didn't have to pretend. If Mark or Wanda had asked the question, he would have had a quick, witty reply ready for them and a rebuttal of the statement. What did it matter what they conjectured? Kathryn's former crew already suspected they were lovers which, ten days ago, would have made him laugh in their faces. Now, things had changed. Kathryn was as bound to him as he was to her. He didn't mind if Doctor Paris knew that.

 "Of course, Doctor. I miss Kathryn. My life has changed because of her. I miss her very much."

 Like my own breath...

 

_Would I die were it not for you, sweet captain_

_for surely do you ride on every journey to my heart_

_and depart momentarily,_

_to tease me with your return_

_delaying it until I can no longer bear the pain_

_Stay with me, my love_

_Live with me and in me_

_Be my present, be my future_

_be everything, everything,_

_but mostly..._

_just be..._

 

Elizabeth touched his shoulder and again Ethan felt the warmth spread through him.

 "Ethan, Kathryn deserves happiness and we can see she's happy now and all because of you. Why do you think I coerced Owen to let Kathryn remain on your property? I knew you'd be the best thing that happened to her."

 "Now I know I'm still in Starfleet!" he exclaimed at the doctor's admission.

 "I'll have you know, Ethan, that Kathryn's happiness means the world to us."

 He nodded, and smoothed his jacket before preparing to leave.

 "Well, if I'm not injured through some calamitous occurrence, I'll see you in a year's time."

 "Good. Don't come back 'til then!"

 When he finally stood outside the medical complex, he felt the sun on his skin, blessed, blessed healthy skin.

 Oh, Kathryn...hurry home to me...

**********

 Mike Ayala studied Admiral Janeway. Her talks with the first minister of the two continents of Kedron had gone well, considering she had walked into the middle of a civil war, with two oily looking brothers, each heading a faction. Admiral Janeway told him they reminded her of Earth's two great silent movie comedians in a battle for comic supremacy.

 "And who would have won if your comedians were still fighting, Admiral?" he had asked, highly amused by this Admiral Janeway, still as feisty and hard-hitting as ever, but with a new lightness to her bearing.

 "Buster Keaton. He was highly creative and would have busted Charlie."

 "Charlie?"

 "Chaplin. You know the one - "

 "No, I don't, Admiral. But thank you anyway…"

 Admiral Janeway had given him a jaundiced look and snorted. Old Earth stuff wasn't his thing. Tom Paris would have known for sure.

 The role players had finally, after many sessions, come to an understanding and commitment to unite and elect the planet's new leaders.

 Admiral Janeway had been hard as nails as she negotiated, compromised, suggested, counselled and finally reaped the results of her endeavour to secure peace. She reminded him very much of their days on Voyager when sometimes, diplomacy didn't help and she had to punch her way through talks.

 In dress uniform, Admiral Janeway appeared stunning, a worthy representative of the Federation. She was a beautiful woman and throughout the talks, whenever he had to be in session with her privately, or arrange an afternoon in which she could visit the cultural districts, he had been aware of her beauty, been aware how much of the Voyager captain was still in her.

 But the good admiral, he noticed, was in a hurry to leave. Not many people worked as closely with Admiral Janeway as it was his honour to do, and he knew her well enough now to understand some of her moods. Naturally he knew why she was in such a hurry, even if she never breathed a word,  and even if she remained as always painfully courteous to their hosts.

 Once he had laughed in Chakotay's face when the warrior told him about the man Ethan Bellamy. He had thought Chakotay jealous and resentful of Admiral Janeway's new friend. Chakotay had had his chances and Admiral Janeway deserved happiness. He had met Ethan, seen him in Borg mode, on the point of assimilating Janeway, but his inner goodness had prevailed. There were so many undertones and tones of richness in the relationship between Admiral Janeway and Commander Bellamy, that Chakotay looked pale in comparison.

 From the first day that they boarded their transport, he noticed something different about Admiral Janeway, as if peace exuded from her. It was in her face, her eyes, her bearing. She had been smiling broadly when she had met him, and her lightened mood had continued through the journey as well as during the past two weeks. Only when she was in consultation with the Comic Brothers of Kedron II, was she the old imperious Captain of Voyager come to settle the matter with her wits.

 Now Admiral Janeway sat opposite him in a small piazza in the First City.

 "We're already a day late, Mike. I'd like to get home."

 "It's only one day, Admiral." he queried. "We travelled for - "

 "It's different now."

 "I can see that, Admiral," he replied with great fervour.

 "Some things have a way of calling us home..."

 "Or some people, Admiral?"

 "Yes," she said on a light sigh. "Some people. Anything else you want to know about me, Ayala?"

 "When are you getting married?"

 And he knew in that moment that it was the wrong question to ask. Admiral Janeway's eyes clouded and there was a droop to her mouth. It was a question that reflected the desires of those former Voyager crew with whom he still remained in contact. Did Admiral Janeway not want to marry Commander Bellamy? They were parents now. He knew that they had formally adopted Icheb as their son, something that had met with everyone's approval.

 Except Chakotay.

 "Icheb is their son now and has taken the name Janeway-Bellamy," he had told a surprised Chakotay, when asked about the new development in the life of Admiral Janeway.

 "She's not in love with Bellamy, Ayala. I can see that."

 He thought Chakotay must have been wearing blinkers if he couldn't see that Admiral Janeway was no longer in love with him. That had been the verdict of everyone who watched Kathryn Janeway and Commander Bellamy the night of the anniversary ball.

 "And that means they don't have to adopt Icheb? They did so at Icheb's request, didn't you know?  They were very happy to do so. They love their son, I can tell you that. What's it to you, anyway? You've got your wife and you've got your baby. Leave her alone."

 "We have a very long history together," Chakotay had retorted. "One never forgets that."

 He wanted to deck Chakotay right there. The man had suddenly developed a colossal ego. Whatever the nature of the relationship between Admiral Janeway and Commander Bellamy, it had nothing to do with anyone, least of all Chakotay.

 Now Admiral Janeway looked at him, Ayala, her eyes full of shadows. He felt like kicking himself.

 "Admiral, I - I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to ask."

 "It's nothing," she said. "But I can tell you I do miss Commander Bellamy."

 "Well, Admiral, I have some news for you. We can leave a day earlier after all, and I have a message from Commander Bellamy for you."

 "I thought I asked him not to communicate with me while I'm on a diplomatic mission."

 "Ah, but, Admiral, you didn't say that he couldn't communicate with me."

 It made his heart leap with joy when the light returned to her eyes.

 "So...what did he say?"

 "That you remember what you can come home to..."

 *********

 Kathryn heard the dogs barking frantically as she approached the back door of the lodge. On her approach to Beaver's Lodge, she had wondered for a moment if she was at the right place. It appeared a little different, and she couldn't lay her finger on what it was. Did he do renovations? What? The upper level didn't look right…

 The dogs jumped at her, wildly enthusiastic as they fought for her favour. She smiled to herself. Conor and Keira had been outside her bedroom door howling their heads off when she and Ethan had made love, but by the time she left, they had reached a semblance of calm  They had taken up their positions outside her door again, waiting for Ethan to wake up.

 It had been stupendous, earth-shaking, a revelation, realising how much she felt for Ethan. Her life was now inextricably linked to his, if only he'd believe it. He had fallen into a deep slumber afterwards and she had thought how tense he too had been, how much he had bottled up. She had taken one last, loving look, kissed him gently on his cheek before she left her room. Peace had descended on her and she had walked, still naked, to his office where she selected some music.

The strains had filled the air then, softly as not to disturb her exciting, virile new lover. No more the disturbing images as she listened to Mahler while she had dressed quickly. When she was ready to leave, she had kissed Ethan again. Her eyes had gone soft as he murmured her name in his sleep.

 The ten days on Kedron II had been scintillating as she dealt with the planet's two leaders, but she had missed Ethan like her very breath. She couldn't wait to come home.

 Now she almost fell over as the dogs jumped up against her. She gave a relieved laugh as she bent to cuddle them before she shooed them off and walked through the kitchen, coming to a stop in the open doorway between the kitchen and the lounge. Ethan sat on the couch, his arm over the back rest.

 He gave a good impression of a man was waiting for her, lines of strain on his face an indication of the tension he tried to subdue. Her heart wanted to burst. She had missed him terribly and had only been punishing herself by not communicating with him while she was away on Kedron II. He was now part of her waking and sleeping moments, and the memory of their lovemaking kept her dreaming of him.

 But poor Ethan looked suddenly uncertain and she bled for a second. Two weeks ago, she had been in his arms and they had made love with so much fierceness and tenderness at the same time that thinking about it every moment she allowed herself that memory, curled her insides deliciously.

 "So, you're here at last," he complained as he got up and moved forward at the same time she had thrown down her hold-all and rushed to him.

 She was pulled roughly off her feet and hugged forcefully. She buried her face in his neck and they remained that way for several long seconds, his arms around her firm, reassuring, comforting, _home..._

 When he finally put her down and she looked into his beloved face, her fingers caressing his cheek, brushing lightly over his lips, she said in a smothered voice, "Oh, Ethan, I missed you so..."

 His head bent down to hers and when his lips touched hers, she knew what control he must have exercised, for he lifted her in his arms, the dogs scrambling and barking behind them, then as if she weighed nothing at all, he walked with her to her bedroom. He paused once, without putting her down and told the dogs, "No peeping toms, you stay outside."

 Kathryn only heard the dogs' pathetic whining outside the door as Ethan dropped her none too gently down on her bed, then stripped naked within seconds, his shaft gloriously erect before he declared, "Now I will show you how much I missed you, Janeway..."

 And all the time they made love with the heady urgency of melting into one another, of having been too long apart, the dogs kept up their whining outside her door.

 * 

 Kathryn rested her head against the edge of the wood tub.  Giving a sigh of pure pleasure, she squeezed the sponge above her face so that the warm water ran over her skin. Steam rose up above her, but the moment was taken up by the feel of the water droplets, like little pearls rolling velvety smooth, bobbing uncertainly first before breaking unhappily into the mass of water again. One arm was slung over the edge as she lay with her eyes closed as she savoured the pleasure of reclining in the tub. She thought how Ethan had surprised her with it.

 "I've got something you might like, honey," Ethan said as they had woken from the aftermath of their lovemaking.

 "Whatever it is, I'll take it," she had murmured against his skin, her tongue grazing a nipple. "I should write a poem about your nipples..." she continued as she flicked her tongue over its tautness.

 "Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll like it. And let go of my nipples, Kathryn, honey," he had groaned as he shifted to brace himself on an elbow, looking into her eyes.

 She had smiled up at him, her fingers spontaneously lacing into his hair in a tender caress. Ethan's answering smile had been enigmatic. There was something, something that had to be a surprise. The last surprise had been two adorable puppies, now grown dogs, licking her awake on the morning of her birthday. Now there had been an air of uncertainty which added to the mystery surrounding whatever it was she was going to like.

 "Ethan, honey, you know I appreciate any gift from you with a grateful heart. I loved your recital at the master class Professor Von Bulow organised for his senior students. Yes, that was wonderful - "

 "Kathryn, shut up and pay attention..."

 "Oh, Ethan, how can I when you're stroking me like that?"

 Half an hour later, she had walked barefoot, blindfolded, guided by Ethan's hand at her elbow with the dogs following them excitedly, up the stairs to his room.

 "We're in your bedroom, Ethan. Tell me you've gotten a waterbed, or something."

 "Or something," he whispered close to her ear as he guided her to the wall.

 Wall? It felt cold to the touch, more like glass. Palms flat against the glass, she explored the pane like a mime.

 "There used to be a wooden wall here, Ethan. What have you done to your house? I was wondering what was so different about Beaver's Lodge. Like you've sold it to new owners and they - "

 "Does the woman ever shut up?"

 As an answer, both dogs barked once.

 Kathryn didn't know what to expect; she had no clue at all.

 Silently she felt the glass move, like a sliding door, like the French door of the lounge. She felt the cool air nip her senses, lift her hair, caressing her skin.

 "We're on the deck? But you have only one deck…"

 Then Ethan untied the blindfold.

 She had stood still for perhaps a full ten seconds. It could have been longer. She didn't realise how long she stood just staring in front of her. They were standing on the threshold of what had been the entire length of the bedroom which covered the top level of the lodge. The wooden wall was replaced by glass and sliding doors opening on to the new deck. Kathryn didn't know what assailed her senses  more in those moments: the vista of trees with the blue ocean glimmering in the distance, the odd cloud puffs that drifted aimlessly across the firmament, or the oval-shaped hot tub, of a wood so rich she could smell its texture and sense its age. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

 Her thoughts became a chaotic jumble then, of old images and new images mingling, of her life on Voyager, on New Earth, at Indiana, her farm, here at Beaver's Lodge, and the two men who ruled her emotions. One, her past and the other, her future. The images became alive and created a humming sound. She pictured herself again on New Earth, with Chakotay presenting her with a tub he had built for her. "Because you like to soak in a tub, Kathryn," had been his explanation. Chakotay who wanted to do so many things for her, wanted to protect her and who, in retrospect, tried to do too much, as if she were entirely and emotionally dependant on him for the survival of her sanity.

 Now Ethan. Totally, unexpectedly, wondrously, he had given her something that made her heart leap with joy. He must have spent the two weeks she had been away remodelling the upper level for her and she had been overwhelmed by all the possibilities of her hot tub. She trembled in the onslaught of the meaning of his gift.

 Ethan had been standing just behind her. When she turned to face him, his eyes were no longer inscrutable like they always were, but tender, vulnerable, and she realised with an ache deep inside her, that he feared she would reject what he had done for her. Unable to speak, her throat thick with emotion, she had fallen against him and burst into tears.

 A hand brushed across her cheek and her eyes flew open.

 "Finished?" Ethan asked. "We have to get ready for the Met."

 "Just a few more minutes."

 "What were you thinking a few frames ago, sweet Kathryn?" Ethan asked as he sat on the edge of the tub and studied her.

 "About the day you surprised me with this wondrous gift."

 "Good. For a moment there, I thought I saw shadows flitting under those beauteous eyelids and they agitated you."

 She closed her eyes again in utter enjoyment. Trust Ethan to catch an atonal note in a melodious sonata.

 "Kathryn, honey, you're already looking like a dried - " 

Her eyes flew wide open.

 "Not a word, buster. Ethan! Hey! What are you doing?? Ethan!!!"

 Ethan was in the water with her, boots and all.

 They never made it to the Metropolitan Opera House to see Voyager's EMH perform Rigoletto.

 ****

 

END CHAPTER 16


	17. LOVE, IN A SUBTLE DREAM DISGUISED

* * *

 

  **Summer 2380**

 Chakotay couldn't suppress a smile as Annika tickled their year old baby, Katie, until the infant crowed and gurgled happily. Katie reached forward with her pudgy arms and kissed Annika rather sloppily, which had the mother smiling as she hugged her baby. It was almost bedtime for Katie, and at this time of the day, just after the baby had her bath, Annika played with her. He had already had his turn and Katie had been lively then, screeching at the top of her voice when he played 'peekaboo' with her. Now the baby was fast winding down. Very soon, Annika would tuck her in and she'd be gone, sleeping the night through.

Katie had just begun to take her first steps and his heart had burst with pride when he had watched her the previous day, as she pulled herself up against a table leg and then took a few steps towards him. Annika had given a quirky smile as she watched Katie toddle, a smile that was full of love and motherly pride.

Chakotay gave a sigh of contentment. Occasionally there was a perfect moment when everything came together and they were perfectly happy. Like this moment, as he watched mother and baby. Katie had blossomed under her mother's care. He had been surprised by the depth of Annika's love for their child, and her industry at learning everything about the baby's care and performing her tasks with great enthusiasm.

"You are so good with Katie, Annika," he said, as he took his attention away from his sand painting 

"She is an uncomplicated infant," Annika replied. "She sleeps on cue, wakes on cue. I don't know what I would have done had she cried every hour of every day."

"Don't worry. I would have helped and we would have coped. We tend to adapt to the baby's needs and circumstances."

"Yes," she replied, distracted by Katie's antics.

He continued with his painting, a little surprised to see the face forming in the sand. Not Annika or their baby or even an eagle.

Kathryn Janeway.

She still invaded his thoughts at times, still managed to insinuate herself into his subconscious, still managed to disconcert him with her presence, still too exasperatingly _near_.  He wondered if he would ever completely liberate himself from Kathryn. He valued their friendship to the point of obsession. There were things he could discuss with her that he couldn't with Annika, despite his wife's brilliance as a scientist. Annika still missed the human element in much of her thinking when it came to dealing with intangibles, with the abstract things such as emotion being the driving force behind many people's actions. She thrived on theory, but when faced with those emotions, she was still unable to define them in the way most humans could.

And Kathryn, the few times they had communicated via vid-com to discuss something, was just the same Kathryn, understanding instinctively what he meant or desired.

He loved Annika, adored her as the mother of their baby. It was Kathryn who still remained that being with an indefinable quality - a  mysterious, _alluring_ creature who kept him chained, forever hankering, drawn to her like to a siren. He couldn't explain it, couldn't rationalise the dichotomy of his emotions when he thought of Kathryn. He grimaced inwardly. A moment ago, in his mind, he had accused his own wife of not understanding warring emotions, and now he succumbed to that inability himself. Yet, he had to admit, he experienced that dichotomy only where Kathryn was concerned.

Sighing, he continued with his painting, trying to leave thoughts of Kathryn buried in the sand.

"You still think of her," he heard Annika's voice.

He closed his eyes at the hollowness of Annika's voice. She sounded...defeated. When he looked up he realised that she had already put baby Kathryn to bed and was standing a metre away from him. She looked like she had that day on Dorvan when she expressed her unhappiness that he could still love Kathryn Janeway. There was a slight droop to her mouth. Annika was unhappy again and he hated seeing her like that, hated himself that he made her like that.

"I cannot help it, Annika. We work together sometimes, at the Academy."

"That is not what I meant."

Annika moved away from him to stand near the couch. For a moment, he felt fear. She looked like she was ready to run, out of their home, away from him... He got up and joined her, touching her cheek gently. His eyes closed again and he cursed inwardly. A moment ago, thoughts of Kathryn Janeway brought him to a terrifying realization that he still loved her; now, touching Annika's cheek so gently brought about another feeling: he couldn't let Annika go. He loved her.

"Annika, I love you, you know that."

"Sometimes, I wonder."

He kissed her, the tremors going through his body as her lips grew soft and tempting. For the next few minutes, Kathryn Janeway was forgotten as he immersed himself in the joy of kissing Annika, a long, passionate kiss which sent his heart racing all over again. When he broke off the kiss at last, he was breathless.

"Admiral Janeway remains my friend even if we don't get in touch often. We work together, that's all. I love you, you understand?"

He felt his wife's sigh and his heart sank. Wasn't he convincing enough? Annika looked remarkably vulnerable, very, very sensitive and insecure. He desperately wanted to convince her that she had nothing to fear. But the night of the anniversary ball, he had been unable to tear himself from Kathryn Janeway and couldn't stop looking at her with a heart full of jealousy at the way she clung to Ethan Bellamy during their dance.

He had been baffled, refusing to believe that Kathryn Janeway could fall so quickly for another man. On New Earth, they had been open about their feelings and had declared their love for one another as often as they felt the impulse to do so. Kathryn had been sexy, alluring, a highly energetic lover, and the way his own body tingled for hours afterwards just thinking about what she could do to him, he thought he would never be free of her. He knew and had tasted every inch of Kathryn's body and then more. Together, they had been vociferous and greedy in their sexual intimacy.

He couldn't understand Kathryn, couldn't understand that she could switch off her emotions like she did after their enforced stay on the idyllic planet. Before that, she had been open, especially after the night of the storm when she had given up on trying to find a cure for them. He could read her, easily sense when she wanted him, wanted to make love, no matter where they were. Sometimes they didn't bother to dress, especially on hot, humid days and then they'd moved about, oblivious of decorum.

Once, he had seen her standing in their special pool at Breakfast Rock. It wasn't Kathryn standing there, running water over her body. It was a water nymph, one that called him, one that lured him into her lair. By the time he had reached her in the steamy water, his cock had been as hard as a rock and he had lifted Kathryn high into his arms, filling her to the hilt as he lowered her down on him. They had grunted and screamed their pleasure as they made love.

Did he make a sound now thinking of Kathryn and the way they had sex? Then he realised it was Annika who had given a little cry of distress. She was staring at the bulge that strained against his trousers. Chakotay realised with shock that he was aroused, rock hard. For a moment he wanted to die of shame, but shame fled as he looked at Annika. He wanted to drive the unhappy droop from her mouth, the misery from her eyes. He had to have her. She must have sensed Kathryn Janeway was still making him hard just thinking of her, and now he had to convince Annika that it was her voluptuous body he craved.

He did crave her, so badly that every nerve in his lower body became sensitised, strained, dying to find release.

He pulled Annika to him so that she could feel his readiness, rubbing himself hard against her. She gave a little moan of pleasure as her distress began to wane in the force of her growing desire and need for him. His hands cupped her buttocks and he kept her imprisoned, staring into her blue eyes, smiling slowly as her eyes grew hot and heavy with desire.

"Care for a stroll about the room?" he asked.

"You want me," Annika breathed, her eyes luminous. He knew he was lost, even as he fought for control. He knew he had Annika convinced of his lust, even if only for the moment. He liked control and Annika, still the _ingénue_ in many ways where sexual dominance was concerned, enjoyed being submissive.

"Oh, yes..." he croaked as he tucked his hand into the neck of her dress and ripped it clean off her body. It didn't surprise him that she wasn't wearing a bra and panty, as if she had known they were going to have a very busy night after Katie was asleep and out of the way.

He pulled her down on the floor, quickly undid his pants and nudged her legs roughly apart. When he slid deep into her, he gave a hoarse cry of pleasure. Annika was hot and wet, ready for him. He rode her hard, and when he reached his climax, something exploded behind his eyelids. Chakotay bit his lips 'til they bled, because it was Kathryn's face he saw for an instant. He dismissed it quickly as he pulled Annika close and lay panting against her heavy bosom.

Later, when they lay on the bed, he stroked her stomach tenderly.

"Look at me, Annika," he commanded gruffly.

When she turned her face to him, her eyes were moist, her hand covering her pubis in a strangely demure manner. Gently, he removed her hand from her centre. He felt his heat springing in him again, caught up in their sex, their smell inciting him deep in his loins. Annika moaned delightfully, her parted lips utterly kissable as he leaned over to claim them. As his fingers found her clit, she gave a soft moan against his mouth. Then he began massaging the little hard nub. Annika's hips lifted, her legs spread wide again. He released her clit, mounted her again, bracing his hands at the sides of her head.

"I want only you," he murmured. The tip of his cock nudged at her opening and in one sharp, hard thrust, he filled her again, riding her like he had in the lounge, groaning loudly as he felt himself nearing the edge. He held back, waiting for her, thrust gently in and out, and then tucked his hand between them, touching her clit and teasing her to a frenzy. She cried out her pleasure, and when he moved his hand away he pounded into her until he spilled painfully into her. Her legs clamped hard around his waist as she gave in to the orgasm that rocked her body.

Then he collapsed, burying his face against her enormous breasts, the nipple closest to his mouth so inviting that he began sucking on it, finding to his surprise that Annika still had milk. It made him drunk with want and sex. His cock was still hard in her and he thrust lazily until he became soft and limp again, sliding out with his semen dripping from her vagina.

"God, Annika..."

"I love you, Chakotay. I will do anything for you. Anything..."

He was drunk with lust. He smiled. He knew where they were going. Annika would be the submissive for this night. Tomorrow night, it was her turn, but now, he could do anything to her in this state. She didn't want to lose him. She wanted to keep him for herself. And to do that...

"Anything?" he asked tauntingly.

"Hmmm..."

And so he flipped her swiftly on her stomach, his hand reaching for the lubricant he always kept ready on the bedside table.

"Anything, you say?"

"Anything…"

*******

Kathryn frowned when Mike Ayala announced that Chakotay was in his office and wished to speak with her.

"Fine. Send him in, Ayala," she commanded, sitting back in her chair as she waited for Chakotay to make his appearance.

Why would Chakotay be so formal? she wondered. She hadn't seen him at all the last two or three days but it didn't bother her much. She saw him from time to time as they passed one another in the corridors of the Academy. Then they'd exchange a few words. She always asked him about Annika, but especially baby Kathryn whom, she was told, had started taking her first steps and was saying "da-da". Chakotay was always painfully friendly, his dimpled smile lighting up his face when he talked. She could never detect in his eyes any sort of apprehension or concern about their friendship. He was, in fact, doing his best not the let the past encroach on the present.

 When he visited her, he always headed straight for her office and only entered after a short sharp knock.

 Sighing, she straightened up in her chair as Chakotay knocked and then entered, pausing a moment in the open doorway before striding towards her desk.

 "Chakotay?"

 "Kathryn, I - I need to talk with you."

 "Is anything the matter?" she asked, rising to her feet, suddenly disconcerted at the look in his eyes. He looked unhappy, she thought absently.

 "I don't know how I can pretend anymore. My feelings for you… I don't understand them myself. I think of you when I'm not supposed to. Then, when I'm with Annika, I love her. I really do. But I can't stop thinking - "

 "You're leaving…" Kathryn said with sudden, painful insight.

 "I have to, Kathryn, if I want my marriage to work without - without…forgive me…"

 "But, Chakotay, you have nothing to fear."

 "It's not that easy, Kathryn. Annika senses that I'm distracted. Her unhappiness makes me unhappy. I'm committed to her and I want to see her happy."

 "Just not here."

"We're leaving as soon as possible for Ketarcha Prime."

 A Federation outpost...

 "I suppose it's futile to try and convince you to stay, Chakotay. You've done wonderful work with your students. You got Icheb interested in - "

 "I can't stay. And Kathryn, I'm not just leaving for Annika's sake…"

 Chakotay let his words trail and Kathryn allowed the words to sink in; she felt shaken as she realised what he was telling her.

 "Chakotay, I told you, you have nothing to worry about. Ethan and I are very close. I don't  - "

 "For my own sake. I love two women, Kathryn. It's eating into me. I know I don't have you anymore. You have Bellamy and you are…close. But I - for me, I want to do this as well. I need to put distance between us. That way, I can have peace of mind and I can concentrate on making Annika happy."

 "I'm sorry that you're leaving. I'd like to keep in touch, though, if you don't mind."

 "Annika is pregnant again," Chakotay said hollowly.

 Kathryn closed her eyes a second, the hammer brought down on her heart mercilessly as it pounded her momentarily. Another baby. Their contract was sealed. When she looked at him again, she managed a smile.

 "I'm happy for you, Chakotay."

 "So I guess this is goodbye, Kathryn. I feel better knowing I can leave and you're not mad at me - "

 "Why should I be? I'm…not…"

 It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she didn't love him anymore. She had told him as much months ago and he had been sceptical. She moved to stand in front of him and placed her palms against his chest. Old Voyager memories assailed her - the countless times she had stood like that before him. A flash of a memory when he had held her so closely in his arms when briefly she had lain dead. He had been distraught as he desperately implored her not to die on him. Her heart felt heavy for a moment, full of the import that she was losing him as a friend too. He wanted to leave, to live on Ketarcha Prime, to dwell perhaps on memories of their times together. She couldn't help it if he still felt tied to her, for she had not given him any reason or occasion to repeat what had happened on Dorvan. She felt the rise and fall of his chest under her palms, tried to feel again the rush of emotion she used to feel whenever she stood so close to him.

 Sighing, she rested her head against his hard chest.

"Goodbye, Chakotay."

 "Goodbye, Kathryn," she heard him say softly.

 It was at that moment her door opened.

 "Admiral," Ayala started, and before he could continue, Ethan moved past him, freezing into stillness as Kathryn lifted her head to look at him. 

 It was a tableau, frozen in the acute silence that followed. Kathryn standing in Chakotay's arms, Ethan Bellamy, her constant companion, standing in the open doorway looking on. Ayala standing behind Ethan, poised exactly as if he were about to turn away from the door. And then Chakotay, whose body had stiffened the moment he sensed Ethan's presence, a  soft sigh escaping him as he realised how compromising the situation appeared.

 Ethan's face turned sharp, harsh, his eyes narrowing at the sight before him. She released Chakotay, moving towards Ethan, smiling as she reached with outstretched hand.

 "Ethan! I wasn't expecting you - "

 "I guess not," he rejoined stiffly. Then he turned on his heel and strode away.

 Chakotay gave her a pained look.

 "I'm sorry about that…"

 "I'll deal with it. Goodbye, Chakotay."

 ****************

 She found Ethan in the grounds of the office complex, where he stood quite close to a flower bed. Kathryn noticed absently how summer was slowly making way for the coming winter, and how the flowers would soon wilt only to rejuvenate again the following year. She thought how Ethan had gone through a process of radical physical transformation and how, if she hadn't found him, he would have died.

 She thought how embarrassed he had been then, how he had never wanted anyone to see him stripped naked, to see him in the guise of everything he had reason to hate. She thought how he withdrew into himself whenever anyone came too close to him, how she alone, of all people on Earth, could penetrate his armour, although never completely. He would always keep some part of himself hidden, untouchable. She thought how, during the past three months, they had become lovers so close that she knew she was falling in love with him.

 She loved him.

 She knew now she would love him even if he never, as long as he lived, touched her again.

 He only had to be. That was all.

 The first person she had seen during that fateful time of her life when her world had been dark and how dying seemed the only release from her pain, was Ethan Bellamy. She thought how he had told her he couldn't let her die when she asked him to. She thought how he had been her anchor, her rock that never faltered, who challenged her and stimulated her, who found a way to those deepest recesses of her being where she once dreamed Chakotay would touch and hadn't.

Could she have loved Ethan then, even when she believed with a heart that bled unceasingly for Chakotay, that she could never let Chakotay go?

 Could she have loved Ethan then?

 The question jumped at her and turned her insides into a bubbling brook that she knew would never become still again because Ethan would always surprise her, would always find something in her to touch. Even as she realised he touched her in ways she'd always yearned for, there were still so many facets, so many, many little particles of her being that each prompted a separate little awakening which she knew now, with implicit conviction, only Ethan Bellamy could bring about.

 It seemed subliminal, this feeling that stole upon her like a thief in the night. Or, like a dream in which Love glided with gossamer wings through the white mists towards her, nodding her head in gentle affirmation of the new Truth that descended upon Kathryn Janeway.

 She didn't recognise it. It thrilled her and it filled her with astonishment, with an aching regret that she hadn't comprehended it sooner.

 She wasn't even certain if that was what it was.

 What she knew was that when Ethan hurt, or experienced joy, or enervation, or sadness, or melancholy, or dread, or compassion, even when he expressed something in a cynical fashion, she hurt with him. She knew that she would want to be there always, to share those feelings with him. Her frame of reference for this love was fractured at best.

 When she had been young and in love with Justin she had loved him with the passion of her untrained and untapped emotions. Her subsequent depression had not only been because she lost Justin, but the way he and her father had died, her own helpless rage that she couldn't do anything to save them. She had lived with that guilt for years, had been afraid to invest in her emotions again, had even, with obsessive jealousy, guarded her heart.

 She had been afraid of loss. Always loss. But Justin had receded and she had moved on. Mark had become the safe harbour, the sturdy rock where she could sit down and rest. He had not made

demands on her, not on her sensibilities nor on her emotions. She needed Mark, but had never felt that she used him. He had re-entered her life when her wounds needed healing and he had been the wonderful balm to her battered soul.

 But in retrospect, she couldn't have loved Mark the way she had fallen in love with Chakotay. Chakotay destroyed every preconceived notion she had that she could control the way she loved. She had laid down boundaries after New Earth to save herself from total collapse, to protect herself,  for she had a duty first to her crew. All else had to wait. She had not been prepared for the total loss of self to a man who understood her, yet not all of her. While Chakotay touched every physical need and scored her senses to wild ecstasy, she had always known that she was searching for something more. She had let him go, had made him leave her when he wanted to stay with her. It almost shattered her. She had pushed him away, more afraid of herself, and even more intensely aware that he was not her destiny.

 She had pushed him away and in typical male human fashion he sought another and fell in love with her.

 Kathryn had never had many dreams to build, but those few she did included Chakotay, included predictably a home, a porch, a cat and dog, a swing seat and more than one baby. She had thought of having children, she had once told Tom Paris, yet it remained an abstract, something humans said for want of expressing anything more intellectual or facing that demon inside called reality. Perhaps those things she craved were merely a metaphor for peace or stability of some kind. But the moment he committed himself to Annika, she wanted him again, against her better judgement, against all decorum.

 Just as she had told Ethan. she had never thought that her love for Chakotay would die quietly.

 "Let it die a natural death".

 She had been right. But the swiftness with which it happened surprised her as much as it did Chakotay.

 

  _"Love, in a subtle dream disguised,_

_hath both my heart and me surprised..."_

She remembered reading the poem by Ben Jonson from an old anthology her father had once given her. Then she had been mystified by its meaning, for she was seeing life through the eyes of the young, the eyes of her youth. Now she knew what the poet meant. Its import struck deep into her, her surprise too stupendous, too precious to proclaim it out loud to the world, even right now to Ethan, for now.

It was thrilling, it was new, it was stupendous. Ethan tore into her sensibilities and remained there. She thrived with him and he touched her in ways Chakotay never could. Ethan kept her wondering, kept her fuming, kept her constantly on her toes and she loved it. He was not just Henry F. Marchand, the famous writer, or the cellist who had given a recital at the Juilliard school under the direction of Herr Christoff Von Bulow. He was not just Ethan, the former Borg turned human, a construct that elicited from the viewer a dangerous, exciting, utterly alluring combination of attraction.

He was also Ethan the man who needed her, Ethan the man who made love with her and then held her close during the night, never wanting to lose contact with her body. He was Ethan the man who breathed her name in his sleep. He was Ethan the man who fixed her breakfast, then sat watching her while he sipped whisky on an empty stomach.

 Kathryn clutched at her breast as if to hold her heart in her hands and cherish it forever, hold it there just a little longer before she could let Ethan see it.

 Right now, Ethan's back was turned to her as he stood rigid, in an uncompromising stance that dared her to touch him. She had seen the expression on his face when he saw her standing in Chakotay's arm. His mouth had become tight, his eyes unsmiling.

 Once again, Ethan had seen something which to him appeared compromising, and he had put his own construction on it. One day, she thought, she would tell him how she wanted to run right out of her office after him and pull him into her arms and kiss his pain away.

 She wanted to do that now.

She tried to touch him, her hand reaching tentatively for his shoulder. She could feel the way he stiffened; it was in his bearing, the way he stood perfectly still, his hands by his sides. If her fingers made contact with his skin, even lightly, Kathryn knew that it was possible Ethan would scream in pain. So she dropped her hand, refusing to let the wretchedness take hold of her. He needed her solace, but more than that, he needed reassurance; she had to forget herself.

 "It was not what it seemed," she said softly, wondering how she could convince an adult male, one in his mid-forties, that jealousy was beneath him. It _was_ beneath him. Yet, she knew he was hurting fiercely. They had made a life together, one that was full, that included a new son, their dogs, their common bonds, their healthy passion. "Please…look at me, Ethan…"

 Ethan turned slowly. Her heart ached for him. He appeared suddenly so uncertain, like one who wanted to be constantly reassured that he need never worry, that Chakotay was not a threat anymore. He was always so self-assured, together, unshakeable. Now he looked…human… She stood about a metre away from him, not daring to take a step closer or to touch him.

 "Then tell me how I should understand. You're tied to me and - "

 "I could tell you that you don't own me, Bellamy - "

 Kathryn felt her cheeks flame at her unkind, uncalled for retort. There were times during their lovemaking that she lost herself in him, no longer the owner of her person, too dazed to fight her independence. Too enraptured to care.

 "Then our lovemaking never happened."

 "Ethan…please. I don't have to justify my friendship with Chakotay or explain how I stood in his arms to say goodbye to him."

 "Sometimes, you're a tease. I should never have to call you that, for I don't think you deliberately play with my feelings. I have them, Janeway, just in case you didn't remember."

 She sighed.

 "Ethan, it's really not what you think."

 "What do I think, Kathryn?" he asked, his voice hollow again, like the day in her bedroom when he had taken one look at her painting and told her he still saw her warrior there.

 "You don’t have to be afraid, you know. I'm strong now, Ethan, much stronger than you think, perhaps stronger than I have ever been in my life. Chakotay shall always remain a friend. You must remember that. It's you I care about."

 "Every time I see you with him, I can see how you can't let him go. My rationale tells me one thing while my damnable heart tells me something else. And you know how you'd rather listen to your heart than to your mind. It's easier, much less fuss than actually racking your brain looking for evidence that points to the opposite. What I see doesn't give me much hope, Kathryn. Your paintings still reflect him, did you know? There's a lot more light there now, but..." Ethan gave a tight little smile and shook his head. "It's what I see…"

 "Chakotay came to say goodbye to me. He wanted to do so in person. I cannot begrudge him that, and you shouldn't either. They're leaving for Ketarcha Prime. The move is permanent."

 "To save him or to save you?"

 "Dammit, Ethan!"

 "You looked…close. Perhaps like you were on Voyager. A team. A partnership. I was intruding. It was damned private and made anyone else feel shut out."

 On impulse, Kathryn stepped forward and hugged him, sighing with relief when his arms enfolded her. She had been afraid to touch him. Afraid that he'd push her away. She pressed very close to him. Ethan was trembling, even in his fingertips that pressed against her back. Her forehead touched his chest. For a moment as she inhaled his cologne, she wanted to be back home on her Indiana farm, where she could lie in his arms in front of the giant fireplace and make love with him. Where he could tell her that he found peace, that peace no longer eluded him.

 "I don't love Chakotay, Ethan. I used to love him with my whole heart. You know how much I did. For a long time, I thought I would never be free of those shackles. I'm free of them now. But Ethan, sweetheart, I can't undo a friendship, you know. He - "

 "Still loves you, Kathryn. It's very clear."

 "I know and I can't help it. That is something Chakotay has to contend with and relocating to a Federation outpost seems to be the way he wants to deal with it. You're right. He hasn't found closure and it's a shame. Annika loves him and he really does love Annika. She is pregnant again…"

 "You won't leave?" Ethan asked as if he hadn't heard the new revelation.

 Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Her lips trembled as she spoke.

 "I am where I want to be. I am where I need to be. In your arms, in your life, Ethan. My heart is yours."

 Ethan breathed a sigh of relief, the cynical look in his eyes gone, replaced by something that made the joy ripple through her.

 "Shall I tie a lasso around the moon and bring the moon to you?" he asked as he pulled her even closer to him.

 "No."

 "I can't build you a temple?"

 "Huh-uh."

 "Ethan…"

 "What?"

 Kathryn looked around her and saw in her peripheral vision that they were being watched by onlookers. They were at Headquarters and she was an admiral who was standing in the arms of a man very hard to overlook. There were always people moving about.

 "We're being observed."

 "Does anybody care?"

 "No…"

 "Good. So you don't want anything? I can swim the deepest ocean and climb - "

 "You could lose the clichés."

 "They're not clichés, Janeway. When I'm with you, nothing is ever clichéd. It's a very fresh idea to build a temple. I should keep you locked in a tower, or better still, keep you chained to my bed - "

 Sometimes, Ethan talked too much.

 "Stop that!" she laughed, the joy bubbling through her at his change in mood. Chakotay and his Annika were forgotten.

 "Why? Just so you can get in the last word?"

 "No. But I have this sudden craving for a hot tub up in the mountains of Curry County which my partner, my companion, my love, my Significant Other sur - "

 "Now who's being clichéd?"

 Ethan laughed for the first time. His voice sounded happy, full of life and elation. Then suddenly,  he became serious. The tiny specks in his eyes became bigger as his face drew closer to hers. When he kissed her, the burn from the touch left deep furrows of fire in her body. She moaned as the contact was prolonged. When he broke off the kiss eventually, his eyes smouldered.

 "So," she breathed huskily, not caring who watched them, "is Ethan going to tell me why he made a surprise visit to Headquarters?"

 "So…is Kathryn going to be happy if I told her that I had a sudden burning desire to be close to an insanely beautiful woman?"

 "As long as that woman was me, of course."

 "You missed me, honey?"

 "Ethan," she began quietly, feeling her eyes fill with tears again, her heart full of love, so new yet so familiarly old. "I care very deeply about you. More and more as each day passes. Just - "

 "Be patient?"

 "Please?"

 "I'm happy now, Kathryn. Happier than I've been in a very, very long time. You made that possible. We have a son. We have two dogs. We could even have more children. Right now, the world has righted itself on its axis. So, patience is not part of this contract, understood, Janeway?"

 "Understood, Bellamy."

 "Now, let's go…hot tubbing!"

 ****************

 Cadet James Tiberius Rollins put down his PADD with a little click of frustration, hearing it clank as it made contact with the desk surface. Icheb had been lying staring at the ceiling for what seemed to him like hours, although it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes. That was when Icheb had last uttered a word to him and then had fallen silent while he, James, worked on the schematics for a tidy little shuttle that had been their brainchild since they started their senior year. It wasn't like Icheb to lose interest. In fact, his friend looked listless, melancholy, if a neo-natal former Borg child could harbour an emotion like melancholy. James dismissed that thought immediately. Icheb tended to brood these days and it was unusual, uncharacteristic. His friend had told him at the open day that Admiral Janeway had asked him whether he was catching up with humanity after all.

 Perhaps Admiral Janeway had been right; it was a real pity that she and Commander Bellamy couldn't witness Icheb's descent into...melancholy. His friend was worried about something or someone. Whatever it was, Icheb was having a hard time figuring out his human responses to human failings and the miscellaneous little foibles humans exhibited. It was serious enough to make his friend uncommunicative. Normally, Icheb was friendly, even talkative in a Borg kind of way. He interacted well enough with the other senior cadets even though they still viewed him with slight awe and a little bit of resentment that he had walked into Academy life and promptly became one of its top students. Icheb was, James thought with sudden insight, a lot like his new father, Commander Bellamy. Perhaps that was at the heart of Icheb's dilemma.

 Only two hours earlier, they had found a way of enhancing the long range sensors on their miniature shuttle, which they had dubbed the Poison Dart. James smiled to himself. The Poison Dart was barely bigger than an escape pod, with warp six capabilities. "Built for two," they had agreed and laughed about it when Icheb had spoken of taking a female cadet for a ride on its maiden voyage. Then after that, he had become quiet, withdrawn. He couldn't miss his parents since Admiral Janeway was around most of the time, teaching at the Academy and also working at Headquarters. Those times Commander Bellamy visited Headquarters to see Admiral Janeway, he always dropped by the Academy to see Icheb.

 If he thought about it, Icheb had been moody for days, only no one would recognise it. The other cadets simply accepted it as his Borg aloofness. Icheb was nothing like that and since he had taken the last name of Janeway-Bellamy, had been quite agreeable. 

 Now, as he put the PADD down, James looked at his roommate.

 "You look worried, Icheb. What's up?"

 When he didn't reply James nudged him with his foot. Icheb responded with a silent stare.

 "Nothing that is of any relevance."

 " _Nothing_ can be significant. Any philosopher will tell you that. There's _something_ about nothing, and as I'm your best friend, I'd like to know what that something is."

 "And as I said, it is not relevant."

 "Come on, Icheb Janeway-Bellamy. You can talk to me."

 Icheb sat up and swung his feet off the bed. James was struck by Icheb's gaze - pondering, like he wanted to ask a question. James sighed. Didn't Icheb realise that half the girls at the Academy wanted to be seen with him, only he pushed them away with his sobriety?

 Yes, it was nothing and it was something.

 "Icheb...?"

 "Why do you call Lieutenant Gilmore 'Mom'?"

 Icheb threw the question at him with sudden fierceness.

 "Because she married my father."

 "But she is not your real - "

 "Icheb, is that what's been bothering you?"

 "Perhaps."

 "Not 'perhaps'! It's been bugging you for some time. No wonder you were walking about for days with that gloomy expression on your face! Look, my real mother died when I was very young, long before my father left on that fateful mission into the Badlands. I was raised by my grandmother while he was away. But Grandma was old, you know. Okay, if you're seven going on twelve, anyone over fifty five is _old_."

 Icheb sat up and swung his legs off the bed, facing him.

 "Do you like Lieutenant Gilmore?" he asked in a direct manner.

 "Are you kidding? I love her. She's the mother I never really had. She is kind, compassionate, very affectionate and caring, and she loves me too. I think I love her more because my father loves her to bits. Say, Icheb… What's the matter?"

 "I love her, you know?" Icheb said stiffly.

 "Admiral Janeway?"

 "Yes. And Commander Bellamy. I could not have wished for better parents."

 "But you're wondering if they love one another? Like my father loves my mom to pieces?"

 "I have been pondering over whether I should call Admiral Janeway 'Mother' and Commander Bellamy 'Father'."

 James wanted to laugh, but Icheb's serious expression stifled any impulsive outburst.

 "Mom and Dad would probably be better," he suggested.

 "But, do you not think - "

 "Icheb, for crying out loud! Stop being a Borg and just think, will you? Or better still, don't think. Just say the thing that comes to mind when you address your mother."

 "Will she be offended?"

 "She's your mother, for heaven's sake."

 "I wish..." Icheb's words ended on a long sigh and he looked away, out the window, staring at the sky.

 "What do you wish?"

 "They would marry."

 "Oh, come on! You know they don't have to do that."

 "But Commander Rollins married Lieutenant Gilmore."

 "So they did. So what?"

 "And Admiral and Doctor Paris… Tom and B'Elanna. Lieutenant Ayala and Carmen. Chakotay and Seven of Nine…"

 "Has it occurred to you that your parents are maybe fine just the way they are? They have a hell of a lot more going for them than some of our cadets' married parents. Why - ?"

 "Because then he would know he can never come between them."

 "Who? Professor Chakotay?"

 "Yes."

 "Icheb, you know what? You are so human right now, it hurts!"

 "So she will not mind?"

 "No. Just go ahead and try it. And don't worry about Chakotay. He's safe where he is with his wife and baby on Ketarcha Prime."

 "But I have a foreboding."

 "And you're not going to tell me what it is, are you?"

 "A terrible foreboding. Something is happening, or going to happen. I cannot put my finger on it."

 "You just have a gut feeling? Icheb, the neonatal Borg drone, has a gut feeling?"

 "A gut feeling, yes."

 "Now I know you're human."

 ******************

 Kathryn gave a contented sigh as she studied the PADD she had brought with her from the office. Opposite her, Ethan was playing, while the dogs lazed on the deck, hardly lifting their heads except when they heard a lark's musical sound in the air. Kathryn loved Fridays, not only because it was the entrance to the weekend when she could really relax, but also the realisation that on Voyager, they had hardly been aware that days had names anymore. Now it crowned her existence, where she could measure time by the way Earth's sun set and rose, the palette that was the firmament splashing its colours in carefree swatches of reds and russets and indigos and blues, so that one knew the exact single moment when the sun would make its bold appearance. And then to lean quietly, unannounced, towards the end of day where it rested again for one single moment on the horizon - striking so deep a red that it seemed impossible to hold that moment, hold on to it forever.

 She had left early for Beaver's Lodge leaving Mike in charge of her office until it was time for him too to go home. There were times they both worked until 1900 hours, but today she couldn't wait to come home to Ethan.

"I'm worried about Icheb, Kathryn," Ethan said to her.

 She put the PADD down and raised her head. Ethan's head was bent over the cello; Webber's Variations on a Theme by Paganini filled the air - playful in its mellow, satin tones, dark and light alternating as the bow stroked the strings with effortless ease. He had been rehearsing the previous day with Davina Etheridge, the pianist, and Abor, a Klingon violinist, for a recital of Beethoven piano trios. She had met Abor, and like most people, had been surprised that a Klingon had mastered a delicate instrument like the violin.

 Ethan himself didn't look too perky; his face was pale, too pale to her mind. Kathryn had an image of how he'd looked just before he had transformed into a Borg. But that terror had passed. This was something different. It was possible he was coming down with something. Icheb and Ethan. The men in her life.

 "Growing pains maybe? A girl?"

 "No, nothing as obvious as that. Something…can't lay my finger on it."

 "Your son is more like you than you realise, you know that?"

 Ethan chuckled, missed a beat in the _Caprice_ , swore under his breath then played on.

 "He said 'Mom' first."

"Icheb's not a baby. But yes, it was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting him to call me that, or call you 'Dad'."

 "Hmmm. Works for me. Think how it would have looked. Icheb walking down the corridor alone, finding his mother walking in the opposite direction and then saying, 'Good morning, Admiral Janeway. I'll be late for dinner tonight because I have extra classes'. Sheese…"

 "Well, I was happy just being Admiral Janeway to him."

 "Now, Janeway, don't get modest. It blew you away and you know it."

 Kathryn smiled, her eyes growing moist as she remembered the day, only a week ago, when Icheb arrived at Indiana where she and Ethan had stayed overnight. Icheb had knocked on their bedroom door, entering without waiting for them to respond, blowing in as if in a great hurry.

 "Is it okay if I call you Mom and Dad?" he asked, breathless and oblivious of the fact that his parents were lying spooned together on the great bed. It was light already and they had had a late lie-in.

 "Yes, now go away," Ethan had breathed sleepily against her.

 But she had sat up and beckoned to Icheb to sit down on the bed next to her. She had spontaneously taken his hands in hers and felt ridiculously like bursting into tears. They hadn't given it much thought before, and Icheb had been painfully correct in referring to her as Admiral Janeway. Everyone called her that, especially Mike Ayala's boys, and Icheb had slipped naturally into that mode. But becoming parents had changed the rules and Icheb had new frames of reference. Some of which, she realised, he had gotten from James Rollins, who called Marla Gilmore 'Mom'.

"Icheb, I am very honoured. Mom, or Mother, or Aunt Kathryn…it doesn't matter - "

 "Then I shall call you Mom. And Dad - "

 "Icheb, yes, it's okay," Ethan muttered. "Now let me sleep, will you?"

 "Can we do a hike up the Coniston Peaks, Dad?" Icheb persisted.

 Ethan had finally sat up and stared blearily at Icheb.

 "Icheb, son, here's a lesson for you. Exercise a little more decorum when you come barging into your parents' bedroom, okay?"

 "I did knock…"

 "You're not seven years old. Parents still get up to - "

 "Yes, it's fine, Icheb. Your father will make arrangements this afternoon for a hike of the Peaks," she interjected quickly, smiling at the way Icheb had blushed furiously at Ethan's innuendo.

 After Icheb had left the room, Ethan had hugged her tightly to him, not speaking for several minutes, feeling feverish in her arms. He had been dwelling in a realm that was private, a realm in which his sons were still alive and loving him unconditionally. She hadn't spoken and had stroked his hair, the tears she had held back earlier flowing freely down her cheeks.

 Ethan had blossomed and taken it in his stride. He was, as he had told her, happier than he had been in years. Icheb had pierced Ethan's hard shell and made him feel again. It had been a big moment for all of them, and after that, Icheb had become more natural when he addressed them.

 "Except, in the Academy corridors, I must call you Admiral, Admiral. I do not wish to be seen as Mommy's boy."

 She had been shaken at this new dimension to their lives.

 Now, Ethan's statement made her look back on the past week. Thinking about Icheb, she realised now that he, too, looked off kilter to her. She had thought that it was the pressure of work in the final year, his studies, the projects, which he and James were assigned as part of their course work. But Icheb had never been unnerved by pressure before, not at the Academy or on Voyager. It was definitely something else.

 "He has a girlfriend we don't know of?" she asked Ethan, who changed from the Paganini _Caprice_ to the adagio of a piano trio.

 "No…nothing like that. Just a gut feeling I have. Could be something, could be nothing."

 "I'll let him know we're expecting him for dinner. That he needs to take a break from dormitory life. Maybe he'll talk. I'll ask him."

 "Then again, maybe it's nothing more than growing pains, which, if you were a young man, you'd talk about it only with your best buddy."

 "Who happens to be James Rollins."

 "Fine young man, too. Icheb may confide in him. Our son is worried about something."

 Kathryn gave a sigh as Ethan continued playing. Something was in the air, she was sure. Since they had discussed Icheb, her being had become suddenly attuned to a different air around them, a mystery that would soon reveal itself. Even Ethan's music, as it slipped seamlessly into the Dvořák concerto,  took on sombre tones - sad, sad music that pervaded her soul.

 "Something's messing with my head, Kathryn," he muttered as he struck a false note. Then he gave a tiny cry of alarm as he dropped the bow and clutched his head for a second.

 "Ethan!" Instinctively she rose to her feet to rush to him

 "No, it's okay, I'll be fine. Just a twinge in the area of my neural transceiver. I'm getting a slight headache. It'll pass…"

 "Let me get you something, Ethan. You don't look too well. I think Icheb isn't well either…" she whispered as the realisation hit her that Icheb and Ethan were connected and that they might show the same symptoms.

 "Don't worry - "

 "Doctor Paris gave you medication in case of severe headaches, Ethan. I'll - "

 Right at that moment, the vid-com in Ethan's small office beeped.

 "I'll get it, Kathryn," he said, scraping his chair as he rose to his feet. He looked steadier than moments before. "Probably my publisher…"

 Kathryn didn't follow him inside immediately. Instead, she very carefully lifted the cello and carried it inside to its usual spot. Then she went back to collect the sheet music and the bow, placing them down on the chair Ethan kept in the corner of the lounge. She was about to enter his office when he came out. Ethan looked ashen, distraught.

 "Ethan...? Something's wrong…" she said, reaching for his hands, a shiver going through her.

 "Kathryn, we have to go."

 "Go…where?"

 Ethan's eyes turned dark and bleak.

 "Something has happened to Icheb, Kathryn. He's at Starfleet Medical. That was James Rollins, his roommate who was hailing us."

 "We must go right now…" she said, as she quickly gathered her PADDS and then followed Ethan to the back of the lodge where the small landing pad was situated.

 Minutes later, they took off. Kathryn was at the conn. Ethan looked spaced out, pale, although she thought his headache might have receded. She hit her commbadge.

 "Janeway to Doctor Paris."

 Some slight static, then seconds later, Elizabeth Paris's voice was heard.

 "Doctor Paris here, Kathryn. Your son has taken ill. As yet, I have no clear idea what's wrong with him. Cadet Rollins found him lying unconscious on the bathroom floor."

 "Has he incurred an injury of any kind?"

 "Nothing that I can determine. I have managed to stabilise him. Paris out."

 The sudden silence in the runabout was deafening. It was only about thirty minutes to reach Starfleet Medical using the recommended slow impulse at low altitude, but the minutes seemed to drag by excruciatingly slowly. Ethan had been quiet during her exchange with Doctor Paris. Now he touched her hand, willing her to look at him.

 "He's receiving signals of some kind. Distress signals…"

 "What?"

 "I don't know the origin, Kathryn. Whatever it is, it's bad enough to plunge our son into darkness. We have to go faster…"

 "Doctor Paris has stabilised him. He's in good hands, Ethan."

 "It's my duty to worry," he bit out.

 She was worried herself. They had only the barest details of what had happened, and not knowing was agonizing. So many times on Voyager, this crewmember or that had been in sickbay, ill to the point of dying. Then she had taken a deep breath, made her way to the medical bay and held that crewman or officer's hand. Life on Voyager had become surreal, now a lifetime away where it had taken on a different aspect, too big and too fantastical to have happened. She had lost many crew for whom she held memorial services. She had seen Harry lying dead, had seen Chakotay lying in a comatose state, had saved B'Elanna's life, albeit against her will. Too many events which had been traumatic, tragic. She had been the captain then, charging in and willing her crew to survive.

 Now Icheb, whom she loved, lay ill, and the thought that he might die terrified her. She wondered absently if the great thundering inside her that turned her hot and cold, was the terror parents experienced when their children were injured and suffered pain. She tried to hold on to her runaway thoughts, to pull herself with immense force away from terrible imaginings. She felt Ethan's hand gripping hers, feeling his strength come into her and calm her. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on the controls of the shuttle.

 Once they had touched down at Headquarters, near the medical facility, they both practically ran to the entrance of the hospital.

 "I hope it's nothing very serious," Kathryn whispered worriedly as they made their way to the ward where Icheb lay.

 When the door opened they saw Icheb lying with eyes closed, looking exhausted against the pillows, his face very pale. Was he still unconscious?

 "Oh, Icheb…" she cried out before rushing forward to take his lifeless hand in hers.

 Ethan moved to the other side of the bed and the moment Ethan touched Icheb, their son's eyes flew open and he looked directly at Ethan first, then shifted his gaze to Kathryn. There was a pregnant pause, one in which they waited with bated breath. Icheb's mouth moved, mime-like for a few seconds before he spoke, his voice heavy, urgent.

 "I think Seven of Nine is in grave danger…"

 *********

 "We'll keep him here for a two day observation period, Commander Bellamy," Doctor Paris said as she snapped the tricorder closed. "He may suffer a relapse. What you have told me makes it necessary for me to monitor him."

 "I understand. I have felt it too, though I'm sure the mystery will be solved as soon as Kathryn has made some enquiries."

 "I am missing two days' classes, Doctor," Icheb complained. He was sitting up in bed, flexing his fingers nervously.

 "Don't worry, Icheb. You'll catch up," Ethan said. "I've already contacted Cadet Rollins to bring something for you to work on. Meanwhile, just lie still and enjoy the rest."

 "I cannot, Dad. I still feel the danger encroaching on me. I cannot shake it off."

 "Icheb, I will be in contact with Professor Chakotay in the next hour," Kathryn placated. "I am sure he will give us the assurance that there is nothing to be so worried about."

 Or that a great calamity has occurred.

 "Please. I cannot rest. I feel something has happened."

 Icheb stared at them and Kathryn thought he looked close to tears. Even Ethan still looked pale, although Doctor Paris had treated him for his headache. She wanted to believe it was Ethan's shock at seeing Icheb unconscious. Only when she contacted Chakotay would she know for sure whether anything had happened. It was a mystery that needed to be solved. Icheb was recovering, but they needed to know, to understand and prepare for any contingencies should both men become ill again. And in order to do that, they had to know if anything had happened to Seven of Nine. Icheb was convinced his collapse had to do with Seven.

 "Icheb, we'll find out, okay? Whatever it is, we need to know so that we can prepare ourselves in case it happens again."

 Kathryn felt Ethan's eyes on her. She knew he was uneasy that she had to contact Chakotay again.

 "I'll stay with Icheb," Ethan's voice sounded up. "You go ahead and get in touch with Chakotay, Kathryn. It is vital that we understand what is causing Icheb's distress."

 Ethan's voice sounded composed. She nodded to him, unable to drag her eyes away from Icheb.

 "Well," said Doctor Paris. "There is nothing physically wrong with Icheb, but I'd like to keep an eye on him. I have another patient to see, so if you'll excuse me..."

 The doctor patted Icheb on the shoulder, then she left the room.

 "Icheb," Ethan began, "already you're looking better - "

 "But you look pale too," Icheb cut in. "I don't want to lose you…"

 "I'll be here, Icheb. You just get better. Your mother is going to see if she can hail Seven of Nine or Chakotay on subspace and find out if anything has happened."

 "Thank you, Dad."

 "You're welcome, son."

 It was overwhelmingly touching to see the way Ethan placed his hand on Icheb's chest, the way Icheb's hand covered Ethan's. The moment was frozen in time. Kathryn shivered. They were so much father and son it was humbling. That was how it would have been had it been Rourke lying there. There was no difference in the quality of the affection. If anything, Ethan positively thrived in parenting Icheb, even though the young man was already grown up.

 Icheb seemed to be out of trouble for the moment, but she thought it would be best if they used her apartment for the next few days to be on call.

 The next moment they heard footsteps. All heads turned as Elizabeth Paris opened the door again.

 "Kathryn, could you come to my office, please?"

 Kathryn turned cold at the sound in Elizabeth Paris's voice. All Ethan's worries, Icheb's illness, her own barely subdued concerns boiled into one mass of anxiety. She turned quickly and gave Ethan's hand a tight squeeze. Taking a deep breath, she followed Doctor Paris out of the room.

 ****** 

"Perhaps Kathryn doesn't have to contact Chakotay after all..." Ethan mused in the moments after the door had closed behind her. With a sigh, he turned and sat down in the chair next to Icheb's bed. Better to wait for Kathryn to return before making arrangements to go to her apartment.

 After she left, Icheb looked at his father with pensive eyes.

 "What…?" Ethan asked, a little puzzled.

 "Dad, if you and Mom are here and Lieutenant Ayala is at the office, and Mrs Ayala is at home with Diego and Peter…"  There was a pause; Ethan frowned, then shook his head.

 "Yes? And?" he asked.

 "Did you leave the dogs without food and water at Beaver's Lodge?"

 "Oh, hell!" he exclaimed, then rushed to the nearest vid-com to hail Ayala.

 "Mike, this is urgent," he started without greeting Ayala, who looked as unruffled as always. "Admiral Janeway and I are here at Starfleet Medical. Icheb has taken ill. But please do us this favour, will you?"

 Ayala smiled.

 "What?" Ethan asked, frowning heavily.

 "Already done so, Commander. The dogs are with Mark and Wanda Johnson, who have promised to take real good care of them. Your cousin assures me that she will see that her husband doesn't sell the dogs to all and sundry in the Federation…"

 "Thanks, Mike. We owe you. We both forgot about the dogs; Admiral Janeway will surely have my head and accuse me of neglecting her precious babies. Then she'll tell me it's a wonder I didn't sell them off to the nearest trader."

 "That's exactly what Mr Johnson said, Commander," Ayala responded with a laugh. Then his eyes became serious. "So…why is Icheb in hospital?" he asked.

 "Something strange, Mike. He is convinced something has happened to Seven of Nine."

 "That one? She's three months pregnant and strong as an ox."

 "That doesn't mean she's exempt from pain and suffering like the rest of us," he retorted.

 After Ethan closed communications, feeling relieved that Mark and Wanda had collected the dogs, he pondered over Ayala's words, remembering that Kathryn had told him Annika Hansen was pregnant.

 It increased his concern a hundred-fold. He had hated men before, hated the Federation, hated Nechayev, but he could never wish ill fortune on Annika Hansen. Suddenly, when he moved his head, he felt a sharp twinge of pain at the base of his neck. He gave a cry and the next moment he sank to the floor, barely conscious, but still able to remain on his knees. He felt the rising nausea, battling the urge to retch right there in the empty office. Taking in large gulps of air, the nausea receded. He rose unsteadily to his feet and managed to sit in the chair again, leaning his head against the backrest.

 Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. His head throbbed. After several minutes he could move his head without feeling pain. Only then, when he could clear his mind, did one thing stand at the forefront, one thing that wouldn't leave. Icheb's foreboding came to him; it echoed like the sound of thunder, over and over...

 "Seven of Nine is in grave danger…"

 ******

 Kathryn remembered the words of her future self, an ageing admiral in Starfleet who had imparted her damning omens of a future she couldn't as yet see. Chakotay would marry, but it wasn't to be Kathryn Janeway who would warm his marriage bed. Chakotay would be happy for three years. Chakotay would be destroyed by his own grief at losing the woman he loved.

 Had she, Kathryn, listened to her heart and reneged on her soul, she could have changed her own destiny the moment Admiral Kathryn Janeway was gone forever. But she chose not to believe. She chose to let her honour rule her judgment and walk away from him with the most precious thing salvaged from her relationship with Chakotay - their friendship.

 She had had difficulty believing her future self then, had thought how totally absurd the admiral's words had been. She had wanted to laugh them off, dismiss them as figments, as the railing of a cheerless old woman whose life had traveled on a different path, one that had given her little happiness. She knew that she could count on her Chakotay as the steadfast man, her angry warrior, her perfect storyteller remaining by her side, even if only to warm her bed and not touch her soul.  She had counted on his bond, his commitment to her cause of duty and command to tie him to her for all time. She had had vague imaginings that one day, when they were all home, she would parade him in front of her audiences, those adulating hosts who would fall over themselves to sing her praises, as the man who had never left her side.

 Then Chakotay had come to her and told her about Annika Hansen: ex-Borg, formerly Seven of Nine, of Unimatrix 01. Annika Hansen, whom she had regarded as her daughter, a child in a woman's body, whom she had helped to guide to humanity.

 Annika Hansen, whom Chakotay loved and taken as wife.

 Destroyed by his decision, Kathryn had hated her own life, had thought she would never be able to lift her head and look at the world precisely the same way as she had before they entered their seventh year in the Delta Quadrant. She had thought that she would never be able to find her equilibrium again. She had known what it felt like to be without an anchor, without balance, without light in her realm. She had known what it was to dwell in Chaos and had fought, at first, when a concerned man tried to drag her from the pits of hell into which she had descended and where she had wanted to remain. For to search for the light, to reach for it with both hands also meant to face her greatest heartache, to face all her sorrow and live with that sorrow. She had believed with utter conviction that she would never experience Joy again. She hadn't wanted to emerge from the shadows.

 For a while she had hated Chakotay even as she loved him with every fibre of her being. She had never been rendered so useless, so wholly uncertain of two opposing, warring emotions that had controlled her living and her breathing for so long. She hated Chakotay because he chose another and chose to love someone else, even as he proclaimed his love for her. She couldn't sleep without dreaming of him, of the two of them together on New Earth and their untrammelled existence. Those dreams turned into nightmares when Annika Hansen entered them and claimed her rightful place next to her husband, leaving Kathryn Janeway, one time captain, commanding officer and lover of Chakotay, out in the cold where she belonged.

 Not even claiming friendship as the unifying bond between her and Chakotay was enough to break through the walls that they both erected: she, to protect herself, and Chakotay, to protect himself and ensure his wife's happiness.

 It nearly killed her to see Chakotay and Annika happy, blissful in their marriage, basking in their love for their child. It nearly destroyed her. There had been nights she dreamed Annika had died, leaving her breathless with the knowledge that Chakotay was free again. Then, in those dreams, she had fantasised all manner of scenarios of their passionate reunion, exclaiming with heady bliss their love that had never died.

 In the bright light of day, those dreams faded and left her facing reality. Chakotay was alive, quite within her orbit, but not hers to touch. Then, in the bright light of day, she realised how her emotions and her yearning to be touched by him as a free man had once again betrayed her. That had been during the early days when Ethan Bellamy was her mentor, her saviour but not yet the man who would become more to her than any other man.

 Then, she had berated herself that she could wish Annika dead. How selfish had she been in her dreams and how guilty when light came and she faced the day? Had she been so selfish all this time to wish that Annika had never existed?

 Now, as tears spilled unceremoniously from her eyes, Chakotay's face blurred. Her disbelief was too great, the portents of the last few hours so exact, so stunningly true that she gasped out loud  after he had spoken. She remained open-mouthed as she stared at him for several heavy seconds in mute shock.

 Chakotay's face creased with intense sorrow. He looked wild, terrifyingly distraught, ready to burst into tears. She had turned hot, then ice-cold, and even now, as she looked at her friend, the coldness remained, ice on top of ice. Then she spoke, finally, her voice barely audible above the noise in her head, the clamouring cymbals that refused to stop. Her eyes burned, her heart burned, her very being burned at the news.

 "Chakotay, slowly this time. I want to make sure I heard you correctly."

 "A-Annika," he stammered, his voice breaking, "is dead."

 **************

 END CHAPTER 17 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title and lines quoted in the chapter "Love, in a subtle dream disguised/hath both my heart and me surprised" from the poem "THE DREAME" by BEN JONSON. 
> 
> This beautiful song is sung in the film "Sense and Sensibility" by Kate Winslet who played Marianne Dashwood. It has since then been a favourite poem of mine.


	18. CAPRICE IN A MINOR

* * *

 

**Mountain Goose**

**High above the cliffs of Coniston**

**the mountain goose a plume unsheathed -**

**with might it pulled my heart to you…**

**I send this plume as gift, my dearest,**

**and saying that my love is deep,**

**my all, my soul for you to keep…**

****

**_Loosely translated from the Afrikaans poem, "Die berggans het 'n veer laat val" [Boerneef]_ **

 

 

Kathryn stood ready to fight him. The winter chill spread through him and he shivered slightly, even though it was much warmer inside the lodge. He had lit a fire earlier in the hearth. Now the dying embers were all that remained, but they still created a cosy ambience so in complete contrast with what he was feeling.

 He hadn't wanted to face what he knew was coming. Now he would be forced to listen and expected to accept without a fight. It was her way. He had been fooled in thinking that Kathryn had suddenly changed into a submissive being, that she would, on his insistence, comply, listen to him, bow to his demands. Foolishly he had imagined that she had taken to heart all his warnings, his diatribes, his concerned entreaties that burnt fingers were not to be burnt again and that she had listened and learned her lesson.

It was what he loved about her - her fierce sense of independence, her individuality. Yet, when the time came for him to deal with that independence of spirit, her right to make her own decisions whether they included him or not, he couldn't absorb it.

They were facing off. Kathryn stood, primed to attack. If he stood any closer to her, he would see how her neck hair bristled.

"He needs me, Ethan."

How could he dispute her words? They had been dancing around one another for the past week, ready to attack and defend. The announcement of Seven of Nine’s death had been shocking. Former Voyager crew had expressed their stunned disbelief at hearing the news. According to Mike Ayala, they had all sent their heartfelt condolences to Chakotay. Seven of Nine's passing left Chakotay grieving with a fifteen month old child to care for now that her mother had died.

Kathryn had been distraught and had clung to Ethan the first night in her apartment near Headquarters. He comforted her but when she had eventually drifted into an uneasy slumber, it was Chakotay's name that issued from her lips when she dreamed.

The news had spread like wild fire and the general feeling had been, as B’Elanna Paris told him, that no one had wished Seven of Nine dead. Their dislike of Seven had been rooted mostly in their disappointment that Chakotay didn't marry their captain and chose Annika Hansen instead.

Icheb had recovered once the mystery of his illness had been solved. He had been intensely saddened by Seven's death, but for him, life went on. It had to. The past week had been a painful adjustment for Icheb who had been close to Seven of Nine during their Voyager years. What Seven of Nine learned by way of her introduction to human relations, she in turn imparted to Icheb, had coached and even counselled him. Now, a week later, Icheb had calmed and busied himself with his studies as a way of coping with the loss of a good friend. And, it was as if his old Borg ways kicked in. Icheb's impassive acceptance rubbed off on him too and Kathryn had been devastated by his apparent unfeeling attitude. She had taken Seven of Nine's death hard, since she had practically raised the former Borg drone, or Annika Hansen as she preferred to be called once she had married Chakotay. Even though Annika married the man Kathryn wanted, hatred was not part of Kathryn's life. The moment Annika's violent death receded just enough for Kathryn to see beyond the trauma of the accident, it was Chakotay and the baby who commanded her thoughts, her sympathy, her compassion, her total concentration.

She had been in subspace communication with Chakotay every day for the last week. Now Ethan faced Kathryn on a wintry day with snowflakes drifting noiselessly down to earth to settle on tree branches, the eaves of the lodge, the deck, and she was quietly assertive about her course of action.

"I have to go to him."

"I'd like to stop you from going…"

"Then don't."

"Not even if I go on my knees and begged you?"

Ethan knew his words sounded bitter. It was their first open confrontation since she had told him of Seven's death. They had conducted themselves civilly, skirting cautiously around the possibility – now a reality – of Kathryn leaving for Ketarcha Prime. Ethan had dreaded this moment, had known that it would come, that it would be futile to hold Kathryn back. She'd had a friendship with Chakotay long before he came into the picture. He was not, and had never been, part of that equation in which friendship and love didn't really equate with a happy life. He wanted to rub Kathryn's nose in that little fact, but at the same time was filled with self- loathing that he was ready to fight dirty. He had once told Captain Neil Brannigan that there were no rules in the rules of engagement and now Ethan was prepared to use low tactics as a counter-offensive.

When Kathryn gave a soft little sigh, it was one of exasperation. Her mood had slowly faded from an expectation that he understood her motives to acceptance that he didn't or wouldn't. He still couldn't understand how Kathryn could leave everything behind – her work, her obligation to everything that she had built for herself in the two years since her return to the Alpha Quadrant, her lover, her son – to be at the side of her friend and former lover. He didn't make it any easier for her. He had never quite liked Chakotay and recognised that his antagonism sprang from the fact that Chakotay couldn't leave Kathryn alone even after he had married another woman. What kind of constancy was that? Ethan always seemed to ask himself.

"Ethan, please, you must understand. Chakotay is grieving. He has been left behind with a motherless child to care for now. I must go to him…"

"So that you can care for him and his motherless child?"

"He needs me now," she replied, pursing her lips in anger, her eyes flashing. "Why am I even telling you this? I shouldn’t have to tell you anything!"

"My God, Kathryn. Are you listening to how you're sounding right now? As if everything we have shared here didn't matter to you at all!"

He shook his head. They were heading for the cliffs in this argument. With a jerky movement he rose from the couch. When he stood in front of her he placed his hands on her shoulders, grimacing when she flinched. Then he dropped his hands.

"I see you're not going to leave gracefully, Kathryn. Doesn't it count for anything that we've been together for a long while now? My own feelings – "

"I was hoping you would understand."

"And I was hoping you'd say Chakotay is a man who doesn't need you there, to nurse him and play – "

"One word from you, Ethan…" Kathryn hissed as she realised what he was going to say.

"We have a son, one who was quite ill a week ago. You don't have to go…" His protestation had ranged from heated and impassioned to feeble entreaties. He was losing the battle; he was losing it fast.

"Icheb is out of danger and quite settled into his studies again. I'm…not leaving forever…" she said, slowly.

"You're not? Why do I have a feeling I'm not going to see you again anytime soon? Why do I feel as if you're succumbing again to a man who doesn't deserve you, who has treated you shamefully?"

"Ethan!"

"No, let me finish, Janeway. Chakotay left you when you needed him the most. He didn't see you like I saw you two years ago, ready to die. Yes, don't look at me like that! Your precious Chakotay took one look at you during the debriefings then told himself you could fight the most important battle of your life on your own when you came up against the Federation. You did well in that combat too, Janeway, so well that it fooled everyone, including Chakotay. All he wanted from you was your assurance that you didn't need him to hold your hand during the court-martial and debriefings so he could be on his way to live on Dorvan with his brand new wife whom he took, might I remind you, because he couldn't have you! And do you know what? He didn't have the balls to tell his wife his best friend needed him! Dammit, Kathryn!"

The next moment Kathryn's hand snaked out, ready to strike at him, but this time he caught her hand and gripped it tightly in his own. He saw how she battled to keep her rage under control, the eyes that gleamed in fury, her trembling lips, the hardness of her jaw as she clenched it.

"Don't tell me what I should do with my life, Ethan Bellamy! If I choose to leave here, I do so of my own free will. I have that, in case you didn't remember."

"And that makes you conveniently forget that we've made a life here, Kathryn. A good life. For a while there, you managed to convince me that we could be together permanently, that, God forbid, you even _love_ me…"

There. The words were out. Hidden in the depths of his being, of his conscious mind, that Kathryn might have come to love him against all the odds, against all expectations except his own. They were his feelings, embedded where he allowed no one near, refused to allow anyone even a small aperture in case it was used against him.

Except Kathryn.

They made love. They slept together, they parented a young Academy cadet and they cared for their dogs. They thrived in their home - cosy, cocooned, beloved. She painted, he wrote and made music. Then, when they were spent in their musical interludes and literary journeys and splashing canvases with daily colourful little tapestries of their life together, they made love again. Many times, he woke in the dead of night to find Kathryn buried in the soft goose down cover tightly squeezed against him. In the morning, when grey dawn filtered hesitantly through the window, he'd lie holding her in his arms while she still slept soundly, thrilling in watching her, often caressing her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, often hearing her murmur his name in her sleep.

Yet, they never proclaimed undying devotion or...love...

All that which he thought they felt, but had never given voice to, never given an affirmation of commitment and honour and devotion. That had to be assumed.

Sometimes, he thought, even men had to be assured by actual words that they were loved.

Kathryn looked at him, a strange expression in her eyes. Then she frowned heavily, at the same time extricating her hand that, he realised belatedly, was still clamped tightly in his.

"You know how I feel about you," she started, heavily. "I do love you…"

The words, when they came, didn't fall like manna from heaven as he had always dreamed. They didn't turn his insides into the kind of mud that, when Kathryn stepped into it with her dainty boots, left her prints embedded into eternity. Her words, when they came, didn't fall like the burning tongues of fire that scorched his very soul, her name emblazoned where all could see how she felt about Ethan Bellamy.

He thought…

"You say that, and in the same breath you want to walk from here, to a man who destroyed you? What kind of love is that? The kind that is only voiced with the lips as a way of soothing my own feelings?"

"I – you know my feelings, Ethan," she said softly, her cheeks flaming.

"But you will walk out of my life to choose a man who is free again, to go to his bed and – "

"Ethan, before I leave here, let me tell you this, okay? He's a man, yes! A man who just lost his wife and unborn child. Annika was three months pregnant when she died. I thought you would understand. You lost your loved ones too and you know how you felt, how you grieved  – "

"Kathryn, I didn't have the luxury of my best friend coming to me, offering solace and pulling me out of the depths of the abyss. Why? Because everyone I knew well enough to call a friend died on the Bellerophon! I was left alone! I had no one, don't forget that. Chakotay has you, yes, and he is counting on you to come running to him in his hour of need, no matter that he knows you are with me. Where was he when you needed him!"

"That is not fair!"

"Has it occurred to you that I need you? Kathryn? Has it!"

Kathryn walked to the French door and peered outside. She looked aloof, beautiful and  untouchable. He couldn't make her see sense. He conceded that Chakotay was distraught, shattered after his wife's violent death. A routine mission to one of the moons of a neighbouring planet that had gone disastrously wrong. Seven of Nine had died with her unborn child. He felt sorry for Chakotay, had intense empathy for the grieving husband. But Chakotay had reneged on his promises to Kathryn, had even, when his wife was alive, bedded Kathryn. Kathryn had returned to Beaver's Lodge, broken again after her experience on Dorvan. The man had done Kathryn no good. All Ethan could see was that Chakotay was free again and reeling Kathryn in like the good fish she was, biting the lure he threw out. He shook his head, wanted to damn himself to hell's gates for thinking too uncharitably about the man whom Kathryn had loved once, whom Kathryn still loved.

Sighing, he closed the distance between them and turned her to face him.

"I need you in my life too. I know, I know. Everything I've ever felt deeply I always seem to find expression for on paper, in holodecks, in the written word. I breathe you, Kathryn. I don't know how it is that you can't see or sense it…"  He swore under his breath. He was losing her, losing the fight. His words sounded feeble, lacking in power, in the urgency of keeping her home, on Earth, next to him, in his heart, his mind, his soul.

Kathryn's eyes became soft.

"Ethan…" she started, "Chakotay and I are friends. It was all I could salvage from a failed relationship with him. Do you know how rare it is that people still remain friends after they've parted as lovers? I had that with him and I treasured it. If I lose it, I will have nothing left from a time that he meant the world to me. Yes, he meant the world to me. But I couldn't let him in my life, because he couldn't give me what you have found in me – my very soul. You touched that, Ethan, and I shall always be glad that you did. I want to remain in your life, but I have to go to him, you understand? He has a little girl who has no mother now and he needs me…"

Ethan closed his eyes briefly, felt an unfamiliar prick of tears behind the closed eyelids. He felt Kathryn's palm against his cheek, his own hand covering hers spontaneously. How could he tell her he would be lost without her if she went away? Ketarcha Prime was a three week journey and he wasn't sure how long Kathryn would be staying there. Knowing her, she had already made arrangements for leave of absence from Headquarters, from teaching at the Academy. Did Kathryn even know how she had already distanced herself from him? Last night in bed… He sighed deeply. She had already become detached…

He opened his eyes. Then he bent his head and kissed her. His lips found hers soft and moist as he allowed himself to revel in the touch. His fingers laced in her glorious hair which had grown long again. He broke the contact between them when she remained motionless in his arms, when her own arms had not flung around his neck in the usual abandon.

"I love you, Janeway, but I can see in your eyes you've already left me," he said softly, finding the words he had wanted to say for longer than he remembered a completely ineffectual entreaty.

Kathryn's eyes filled with tears. Groaning, he pulled her close to him, burying her face against his chest, his hand caressing her hair. When at last he held her away, he had calmed sufficiently to look at her without losing his cool.

"So, do I keep the dogs?"

She said nothing, remained staring up at him.

"No?" he asked.

Still no response.

"I can't help you pack?'

Kathryn remained silent.

"Sorry, you already packed," he said, unable to mask his bitterness.

When she still said nothing, he swore again softly.

"Will you come back, Kathryn?" he asked, the pain overflowing. "Will you come back to me, to Ethan Bellamy?"

"I…don't know, Ethan…" she said, finally. Then she turned away from him and walked into her room.

An hour later, with the dogs barking furiously, he watched Kathryn's shuttle take to the air, watched until it vanished from sight.

And even long after he couldn't see the shuttle anymore, he still looked at the sky, watched until the clouds sailed into his line of vision at the last known point he had seen the craft before it had grown too small to see anymore.

He was alone.

Again.

************

Icheb stood before Admiral Paris who peered at him with his sharp blue eyes. Owen Paris was a tall, stocky man. With his grey hair and stern looking features, every cadet in the Academy feared the man who was the father of Tom Paris.

Now, for the first time since he'd entered the Academy, Icheb felt disconcerted by the older man's gaze on him. For the first time too, he felt as if his heart would stop. He experienced anxiety and, when he clenched his hands, felt that his palms were sweating.

He had never transgressed, never put a foot wrong. He had never considered executing unauthorised and banned flight maneuvers during flight training, nor had he propositioned any female professor like one or two cadets had done. He had never so much as absented himself from classes like he had seen some  cadets do. He loved Academy life, thrived on pitching his intellect against such great men as Admiral Paris and Professor Li Zhyiang who taught quantum physics. He could never wait to be in their classes and always hounded James to join him in being on time. He never consciously projected himself as anything but a cadet who wanted to become the best engineer in the Federation. Well, after the famous Doctor Leah Brahms, of course.

Yet here he stood before the older man, afraid. Admiral Paris had a reason to call him to his office; Admiral Paris had a reason to dress him down. His infraction was not an infraction at all. But what he had done or, more pertinently, what he hadn't done, was enough to warrant being called to the office of a man whom he had come to admire greatly.

"It is very unusual," Admiral Paris started, "that my top student has performed below par and lost points on his last test. You lost focus on something that a cadet of your calibre never misses. What do you say to this, Icheb Janeway-Bellamy?"

"It will not happen again, Admiral Paris. I do not wish to see you disapprove of my performance. I find the feeling unsettling."

"That I disapprove of your performance or that you found your performance unsettling?"

"Both. You are disappointed in me. I failed you."

"Cadet, you didn't fail me. I am not disappointed, but I am concerned."

"I will work ten times harder from now on."

"Icheb," the admiral said, with a sigh, "I know you will always strive for perfection, but let me tell you it's our imperfections that make us human. Things will happen to impede you on your way to success, or any road you walk. Now, young man, would you care to tell me why your scores have dropped in the last month?"

"I do not know myself, Admiral. I thought I had everything under control. I cannot tell you what it is, except…"

"It has to do with Admiral Janeway?"

The words were thrown at him like a bolt of lightning, striking deep into his chest.

"Please, may I be dismissed, sir?" he asked, not sure how to continue a dialogue that made him feel worse by the minute another word was spoken. Especially when the admiral seemed to home in on something he didn't wish to discuss with anyone.

"If it is of any help to you, Cadet Janeway-Bellamy, I understand that you miss your mother."

"Many cadets here do not see their parents for entire semesters, Admiral. I should be no different - "

"But the circumstances of her disappearance have a bearing on your state of mind, young Icheb."

He felt the heat creep into his cheeks.

"That is not true!" The words burst from him with sudden intensity.

Admiral Paris rounded his desk and came to stand right in front of him. A hand gripped his shoulder in reassurance, much like his father would have done, only his father was battling his own demons... When the older man spoke, his voice was gentle, so gentle that Icheb felt an unfamiliar prickling behind his eyelids. He blinked once to drive away the moisture that came to settle in his eyes. It was the strangest sensation. He didn't know tears, nor did he experience crying, like he had seen Naomi Wildman do sometimes. He was Borg. Emotional outbursts were foreign to him. Yet strangely, unaccountably, when Owen Paris's hand touched his shoulder like that, it made him want to weep.

"Icheb, son," the older man began, "you may have to accept that when things happen outside your ability to control, they...infest your subconscious in ways that you may find…surprising."

"I am Borg. It is irrelevant - "

"I know that your mother is not one to shirk her commitment to her son. She will return, I am sure of that."

Icheb pictured his mother the last time he had seen her, on the screen of his vid-com during a subspace communication. She had only contacted him to tell him she had arrived safely on Ketarcha Prime. She had looked tired and a little unhappy. How could he be sure she would come back to them? How? Even though Admiral Paris seemed convinced, he wasn't sure any more.

"Thank you, Admiral Paris. I am much relieved," he replied, trying to smile, trying to feel encouraged. "Permission to be dismissed, sir."

"Dismissed."

When he left, he remained perplexed at Admiral Paris's words, for even though they were supposed to make him feel better, he still felt rudderless and unsettled. No matter how comforting the hand on his shoulder was, it didn't lift his mood of melancholy. He still felt an ache inside him that his mother had left and would never return. After she had contacted him that one time, he had heard no more from her.

Despite the admiral's assurance that she would come back to her family, he was not sure of anything anymore. And his father…

Icheb sighed. Ethan Bellamy never once looked like he missed Kathryn Janeway. He fed the dogs, played his cello with his head bent low over the instrument like always, disappeared into his office to hammer out thousands of words of his novel. He went for long walks up to Deer Lake or hiking Mount Coniston and trudging the Coniston Peaks. Those were Ethan's general activities anyway. The times when he visited Beaver's Lodge , his father appeared upbeat, but never spoke a word about Kathryn Janeway. But, Icheb decided, with Ethan Bellamy, looks were entirely deceiving.

"So, did the admiral crap on you?" James asked, as he stepped out of the office into the long corridor. His friend had accompanied him and had been waiting outside all this time. Now James tugged his arm. Icheb stood still, then continued walking, forcing James to release his grip. But James kept walking behind him. Icheb turned suddenly, causing his friend to knock into him.

"It's nothing, James." Then he turned and continued walking 'til they were outside, with James keeping up his prattle.

"Nothing? Oh, yeah, we've been over that before. There's something in nothing, and nothing can be something, remember?"

"I remember. I fared badly in my last test, James."

"The one where you scored ninety eight percent instead of the usual ninety nine or hundred?"

"That. Yes. I failed him."

"What? Would that be the Borg in you speaking? I'm sure Old Blue Eyes - "

"Old Blue Eyes?"

"Admiral Paris, dummy."

"What about the admiral?"

"He told you he's concerned about you, right?"

"Yes," he replied sharply without looking at James, who now walked abreast with him. "I didn't perform to my usual standard."

"Yeah. First time I scored higher than Icheb Janeway-Bellamy. But an accidental first, mind you. You don't normally slip up like that. You gonna tell your best friend what's up?"

"What's up? The same thing Admiral Paris tried to coax from me, but could not succeed."

James yanked his arm again and he was forced to stand still. He sighed. James looked like Admiral Paris: concerned.

"He couldn't get anything out of you?"

"He tried."

"Oh, don't for one moment think he didn't get anything out of you, Icheb. That man is the cleverest man in the universe. He knows everything," James said as they neared the Academy dormitory. "He already knew before he even asked you."

It was bitterly cold, but he hardly felt it. When he turned to face James again, he saw how his friend shivered uncontrollably. Very quickly, he entered the foyer where he stood still, letting the warmth of the room fill him again. James, he saw, gave an audible sigh of relief to be out of the cold.

"Did you divine the admiral's thoughts?" he asked his friend.

"No. But I knew him before you knew him. That makes me the expert around here on Owen McKenzie Paris. So? Are you going to tell me?"

"He didn't get anything from me."

"Let me guess what Admiral Paris said, before you crap on my head, my friend. He told you you miss your mother, right?"

He couldn't ignore James's penetrating gaze. He sighed as he nodded, his hands on his hips in an unconscious imitation of the way his mother stood when she taught a class.

"Yes."

"And he told you she will be back, no matter what, right?"

"Yes, he told me that."

"So, why the long face?"

"I'm just not sure anymore, James. She left without saying goodbye to me. That is so contrary to her nature. She did call to say that she arrived safely. That man...Chakotay, I do not want him in my mother's life. My father...he isn't taking it well, you know?"

"Oh, ye of little faith. My father will tell you that there was never a time he thought that Captain Janeway would fail them. And, that man...Chakotay," James mimicked his own words, "should learn to cope on his own. My father did when my real mother died. So did thousands of men and women who lost their nearest and dearest. Your father..." James swore. "Icheb, I don't know much about what happened to him so many years ago, but I know that his family died on the Bellerophon and he was the only survivor when the ship was destroyed. But he was forced to cope, whatever the nature of that coping was."

"He suffered."

"But he didn't die of grieving! I tell you now, Icheb, son of Kathryn Janeway, your mother is not going to fail you. It might not look too rosy to you right now, but everything will come right in the end. Mark my words."

James's face was red from his outburst.  For a few seconds Icheb closed his eyes and allowed his pain to wash over him again. James was right. His friend's faith was greater than his own and he didn't appreciate that James cared about him so much. With a sigh, he opened his eyes again and squeezed his friend's arm.

"Forgive me. My behaviour was boorish. You sound so convinced that I will mark your words."

"Great. Now, shall we get our gear and leave for Utopia Planitia?"

"Utopia Planitia…?"

"Yeah, Utopia Planitia, the place where they've completed the building of the Poison Dart, remember? And we're supposed to take her on a test flight, remember? Huh? Huh?" James said insistently, nudging him in the ribs.

For the first time Icheb felt like smiling again. Admiral Paris and James were right. He worried too much. After all, it was only two months since Kathryn Janeway had left for Ketarcha Prime. Who knew, she might even be on her way back... His spirits lifted.

"So what are we waiting for? The Poison Dart awaits!"

They were standing at the lifts, and as the doors opened, the young woman who stood there gaped at him. She had no eyes for James. A flush crept into her cheeks. By the time she realised she had been staring at him, she gasped suddenly, then fled through the door away from them as quickly as she could. When the lift doors closed, he rested against the wall.

"She's the one," he heard James say.

"My heart does nothing but beat in the normal way."

"Ah, but hers went into warp drive. Didn't you notice, Icheb?"

"Noticed that she was flushed, yes. But that's no – "

"That was Shaira Begum Khan, the most beautiful second year cadet on Earth, in case you haven't noticed," exclaimed James as the lift took them up to the sixth level.

"Yes, and so what?"

"So what, indeed," James said with an air of exasperation.

 

************

 

He was restless; it seeped into the tips of his fingers where it quivered incessantly and spread from there through his system, making eating, breathing and sleeping unwanted necessities. He wanted to escape the restlessness, but like peace and contentment, even that was denied him. So he drowned himself in his music. Sometimes his fingers plucked furiously at the strings, or the bow struck the strings in intense rage as it scored them, the sound sharp and metallic, far removed from the mellow, deeply resonant tones whenever he played.

_"Will you come back to me, Kathryn? Will you?"_

Her eyes had filled with shadows, darkly intense as she just looked at him, and without answering, turned and walked away.

She left him with every heartache he had suffered before. He tried not to think, so he sank his soul into Elgar and Boccherini and Dvořák and Brahms and allowed them to fill his mind and make new odd, fragmented memories there.

_Don't think…_

How could he not? He remembered everything, and those times that she dominated his mind, Elgar and Dvořák fought him like fiends and bullied him into serving them in a titanic battle that left his fingers scarred, blistered, bleeding. Then the storm clouds would gather, boiling and boiling in enormous billows as they too, seemed to join in the harassment of Ethan Bellamy, one time lover of Kathryn Janeway and now, nothing but a bad memory for her.

At the oddest moments, he wondered what she was doing. Then, when he imagined that right at that moment she might be lying in the arms of Chakotay, no matter that Chakotay's wife had just died, he would rise jerkily to his feet and rush with breathless energy to the shed to gather his hiking gear. Within minutes, he'd be off, scaling the cliffs or climbing up Mount Coniston, hiking the Peaks, rowing an old boat on Deer Lake until he was so tired that he couldn't move anymore. Exhausted, he'd fall into a slumber, only to wake when the icy cold drilled painfully into his bones. Then he would rise, his limbs creaking, and make his way back down to Beaver's Lodge.

Beaver's Lodge.

When Mélisande and the boys had died, he'd sought refuge at Beaver's Lodge, the wood cabin left him by his parents. Here he'd lived and died ten thousand times. Here he'd lived and metamorphosed into _someone else_ , a hated being that left him hating himself. Here he'd hidden his shame, cocooning himself within the walls of the cabin, away from the outside world, jealously guarding his safe haven from prying eyes. Here he'd lived and created music and images, trying to forget, trying to find rest. Here he'd lived and found a measure of peace.

Until Kathryn arrived and disturbed his hard-earned equilibrium, however seasonal that was. Until Kathryn came and gave him reason to live again, live like a man who needed a woman by his side. Until Kathryn came and gave him reason to believe that the world could be a good place. Until Kathryn came and taught him that he could learn to forgive the enemy.

Until Kathryn came and he fell in love with her.

He treasured his vulnerability with painful precision, had known that it would always be suspect when the right person came along to spear open his heart and expose his deepest emotions, see his most precious feelings. And when he allowed Kathryn inside his sanctuary, he was fearless again for the first time in many years. He felt he could trust her with his sensibilities and once he had, had begun to live again. She brought him joy amidst the pain he felt most of the time when he couldn't fathom her unequal friendship with a man who gave her nothing but heartache when he chose to supplant Kathryn as the woman who would warm his bed.

Then, unbidden, came the image of Kathryn writhing under a body - Chakotay's.

Suddenly feeling breathless again, he stopped playing, his chest burning as the air left his lungs.

"Damn…you…Kathryn…" he murmured as he got up, and the cello slid sideways to rest against his chair.

Feeling that his chest was about to implode on him, he tried sitting down on the couch and bent his head low, forcing himself to slow down his breathing. The room spun maddeningly for a few seconds. He waited it out and finally, when he could focus again, he leaned with his head against the back of the couch.

It was indisputable. The reality was always there, in his face, ready to bite into his flesh and thereby providing the physical torture that would complement the indescribable inner torment he felt. Missing Kathryn became a pervasive substance that kept him awake when he tried to sleep and kept him thinking of her when he was awake.

After two months in which he had heard nothing from her, he felt his life ripped violently from him.

_Song without words…_

"Kathryn…" he murmured softly, to himself, "I just don't know how to tell you that I love you. Words elude me, always. My tongue is a useless appendage, unable to articulate emotion or any declaration of what I feel for you. How then can I tell you what I feel, even as I know I am too late to hold you to me, forever? How then can I convince you that staying is better than leaving, even if you no longer feel the way I do? How then can I repair the damage even as I know that the damage is irreparable?"

_"Shall I build you a temple, Janeway?"_

_"No…"_

_"Not even walk to the end of the earth or swim the deepest ocean?"_

_"No."_

Agitated by these thoughts of happier times, he gave a small cry and got up suddenly, swaying as the unexpected movement caused another bout of dizziness.

"I must go..." he murmured, walking clumsily to the back of the lodge. He groaned as the dogs jumped up at him from where they had been sleeping in the shed. Conor and Keira had accompanied him on his easier hikes, and sometimes to Deer Lake when they balanced themselves in the boat while he rowed.

"This time, you stay," he commanded. Conor barked and Keira whined unhappily but settled down as he gathered his gear - a 20 _l_ backpack ready filled with rations, his red parka which Kathryn had given him on his last birthday, a pair of boots as well as crampons should he encounter ice, climbing rope, pitons, picks and karabiners.

When he was ready, he stood, facing the dogs.

"Look after the lodge for me, will you?" He waited 'til they turned and scooted through the backdoor into the house. He heard their barking as he walked away from Beaver's Lodge, up, up towards Mount Coniston, to where the firs ended and the snow started, to where he would encounter ice. If he didn't return within twenty four hours the transponders on the dogs' collars would activate to send signals to Mike Ayala or Icheb on their commbadges.

He was safe. For now.

On and on he walked, maintaining a brisk pace, fraught with a slight burn in his chest as the gradient became steeper. Little puffs of mist formed when he breathed, the shock of inhaling the frosty coldness keeping him awake, alert. Still he trudged up the mountain until he could no more just walk, where the snow lay driven against the ridges. Then he started the actual climbing, his ice pick glinting as the rays of a tepid sun reflected on its head. He slid down a metre or so, landing on a ledge. Gasping from the icy air, he took a minute to catch his breath. He removed the pack carefully, then set about fixing the crampons on his boots. Five minutes later, he was ready to hack into the mountain ice again. Now he could literally dig his heel into the ice to gain purchase and facilitate movement, plotting a diagonal course over Hollister Ravine.

The exercise hardened him. When the first karabiner was hooked through the piton he knocked into a tiny crack in the ice sheet and the rope secured, he began the first of his swings against the ice face, using his feet in a running movement. Like a small pendulum, hanging only by a piton, a karabiner and the rope, he swung from point to point and so he slowly made his way across the most difficult ravine of the Coniston Peak. He smiled to himself. He had once had a conversation with Tom Paris, who told him that he had challenged the north face of the mighty Eiger in a holodeck experience. "And without safeties, mind you," Tom had told him. "Got right to the top in thirteen hours… We should do the real Eiger sometime…"

 He liked Tom Paris just for that bravado. Tom, who couldn't stop teasing Kathryn about hanging around a guy who had abseiled himself into her life.

 Kathryn's images jumped at him as he remembered her look when he had done the same down the cliffs near the lodge. Her eyes had filled with momentary fear when he tumbled twenty metres, their ropes preventing them from plummeting to the beach. He'd suffered whiplash just from the sharp jerking as the rope's elasticity pulled him back like a rubber band.

 Ethan closed his eyes and tried to blot out her existence. He didn't want to think of her. He wanted to pretend she'd never happened in his life. It was impossible. Just as it was impossible not to smell her in their bed, her pillow still fragrant with a faint teasing of hair shampoo, a soft scent that hovered in his awareness more than actually smelling it.

 She's never coming back...

 It was why he climbed, scaling the cliffs, the ravine, the ledges, the nooks and crannies and overhanging ice sheets, to forget, to concentrate so hard on what he was doing that only the next metre of movement forward, upwards, sometimes even down again, mattered because it had to matter.

 "I must forget...forget..."

 Hours later he reached the Canada Ravine, the approach to the rest of the Coniston Peaks, five mountain summits that in turn formed the gateway to the Coniston Mountain Range. If he reached the fifth - he called it the Epsilon Peak - he gave himself only a day for the return hike, this time keeping to the lower foothills that would bring him back finally, to Beaver's Lodge.

 "You like to do things the hard way, Bellamy?" Kathryn once asked him when he returned to the lodge after a five day solo hike.

 "Just scaling Hollister Ravine takes five hours, and then some..."

 "That's what I mean."

 He had given her a sheepish grin, almost embarrassed to admit that he loved the physical challenges nature offered.

 He pulled himself away from thoughts of their life together and busied himself with the task of resting, quickly removing the crampons and hooking them to his backpack. The ledge was wide enough for him to bivouac for the night, if necessary. It was late afternoon and he had been on the move since morning without resting, except when he stopped for necessary relief as well as fixing the crampons to his boots. He didn't worry too much about the dogs; they had enough food and water and could slip through the hatch in the backdoor and run around outside.

 After he had eaten and taken some fluids, he sat back against the rock. The vista of the mountain range with its untamed beauty always took his breath away; it stretched in the distance until he could see only a bluish tinge on a clear day. The sun was behind him so he had a good view of the natural formations, the pristine snow. When he sipped a draught of whisky, he grimaced, then half disgustedly emptied the container. It was no time to get dizzy and aggravate his laboured breathing because he was sitting at an altitude of three thousand metres where the air was thin. He was just about to pack away the container when he saw something flashing in the distance. It could have been a trick of light, it was so small. But when he saw the flash again and again, he thought it could possibly be a bird. He blinked, then he remembered that he carried binoculars whenever he trekked up the mountains. He retrieved them from his pack and peered through it into the distance.

 "Oh, my…a goose," he exclaimed softly, in wonder, as the bird came into view.

 Ethan frowned. Every year he had seen Canada geese migrating south, flying in the famous V-formation over Beaver's Lodge, at times quite low. He recognised them by the distinctive dark necks, the white underbelly. This was no Canada goose. In fact, he was certain it didn't belong to the continent of North America. But it had a similar plumage, looking remarkably like the Egyptian goose. And this lone goose appeared lost, even injured, as it flew in haphazard movement in circles, yet still coming nearer and nearer. Actually, it was probably a thousand metres away, but it seemed close when viewed through the visor.

 And then he realised something else. It was flying alone, in some distress. Egyptian geese moved together in pairs. They mated for life.

 "So, where is your mate, Osiris of the Nile?" he asked, still fascinated that the goose was slowly making its way closer to where he was. Now he could hear the inelegant squawking sound it made. He thought it was the sound of pain. The bird was flying alone, far away from its natural habitat – the mountains and wetlands of Africa. How did it get to this part of the world, and on its own?

 Did you too, sing the song of a wayfarer, wayfarer?

 When the goose squawked again, Ethan wanted to think it was an answer to his questions. He wanted to imagine the bird felt like he did, away from its mate, in isolation, in pain… Ethan kept looking at the goose through his binoculars. With wings suspended in flight, on its erratic path, it flew closer and closer.

 When Ethan put down the binoculars, Osiris of the Nile was still too far away. Then suddenly the bird gave an unearthly cry. It flapped its wings in furious alarm, gathered its composure as it became even in flight again before hastily flying higher, higher, higher, over the Coniston Range until it was so far and so small that Ethan couldn't see it anymore. He felt inexplicably sad when the bird was gone, sad and helpless.

 He had seen something else as well before Osiris of the Nile took flight. As it flapped its wings in distress, Ethan had seen a feather unsheathing and drifting lazily down, down, down… Ethan kept his gaze on the falling feather until, looking through his binoculars again, he saw that it had landed about two hundred metres away from him, coming to rest where, because of its unusual shade and contrast to the snow, it lay like a blood spatter staining the white, white, earth.

 The yearning – so suddenly, yet so quiet and powerful came to him. The goose, Osiris, had captivated him. Did its mate die somewhere? Egyptian geese mated for life and only death could have separated him from his mate, nothing else. Perhaps there had been chicks. Still, it haunted him for a moment – the extreme loneliness of Osiris as he tried to find direction, to find his way home, Ethan realised with a pang. He would never see it again. Never. But the bird had left him something. Was it a portent, signalling only doom to his own battered, lonely, unhappy existence? How much more lonely could he become than he already was? How much?

 And so the lonely feather drew him inexorably to it. The haunting, melancholy way it glided to earth kept him riveted, his desire to reach it becoming the only thing to own in the whole universe.

 

_Osiris, inflict your loneliness on me -_

_Let me have your pain and you'll see mine._

_Give me something – one single feather -_

_Leave me with a memory, a haunting thought_

_to wonder forever about your destiny_

_to follow you in my heart_

_to unknown lands far, far away_

_where vistas become mirages in a desert,_

_while your instincts lead you there_

_our flight paths merge, is mine to share…_

 

In breathless anticipation he packed up, for in the morning the feather would be gone, covered by snow. He could track it on his tricorder, but while it was still light, while the sky was splashed red as the sun set, he wanted to reach the feather and treasure it from the ancient bird that once had graced the gardens of kings. He heart thudded against his rib cage and his mouth felt suddenly dry, so filled was he with the urgency of his mission. Once his crampons were secured to his boots again, once he had rolled up his sleeping bag, once he had slung his arms through the bands of his backpack and settled it securely against his back, once he had pulled his red, fur-lined anorak with its fur-lined hood tighter around him as if to insulate more of his body heat and conserve energy, once all that was done, Ethan set off to find the feather.

 Only, it lay perched precariously at the edge of a precipice, a  sheer drop of about thirty metres if he were so unfortunate as to plunge down the small ravine. Yet the desire to grasp the soft plume and own it, even as it resisted ownership of its very existence and only occasionally revealed to the possessor its core, was so great that he hastened towards it. He knew that Osiris had left, alone again, to continue his quest in search of his mate, even as his ancient intuition told him that she might lie amongst the ruins of her destruction. It was the way of the bird, its destiny engraved into its birth cells since the dawn of time. It was inescapable and so Osiris swept the skies, searching, searching, heedless of his destination and only impelled by the knowledge of the journey.

 The way ahead became perilous. Ethan had never tracked this route before; in fact, he was going  way off course. Once more, he fiddled with gloved hand in his pocket to retrieve the binoculars and get a good look at the feather.

 Then his heart stood still. It had slid further to the edge of the precipice. Did a wind suddenly spring up to drive it further away and out of his reach?

 He trudged forward, skidding, stumbling, at times even managing to run a few steps. It was almost dark, but he could still see the feather which had taken on an ethereal, luminous appearance. As if it wanted to guide him there. His chest wheezed from the exertion. From where he had originally rested and decided to bivouac and continue again when light from the East struck the sky ahead of him, it had taken an hour to progress a mere three hundred metres. His heart sang wildly as he saw it beckoning to him, drawing him ever nearer. He looked at the sky and groaned. When had the sky become overcast? When had it become dark so suddenly? Had he been so intent on reaching Osiris's feather that he hardly noticed how the sky had changed?

 He hurried forward the last few metres through thick snow, the crampons impeding his progress. At last he stood on a ledge just above the narrower ledge on which the feather had dropped so gracefully from the sky, a thousand years ago it seemed to him. He drew in his breath, surprised to find the burning no longer so overpowering.

 Carefully, Ethan started down the short rock face, using only his ice pick and the jutting pieces to gain foothold. He cursed when he slid a metre even with his crampons digging into the ice. When he could feel at last the solid surface of the ledge under him, he realised only then how narrow it was. He couldn't turn on the ledge because his backpack budged against the face. He teetered maddeningly for a second before he found his balance again. Ethan was no stranger to great perpendicular heights or sheer drops of hundreds of metres, but this time he was unprotected by his pitons and karabiners and rope. He'd have to use them just to get off the new ledge. He looked down and saw the feather quivering on the edge.

 A warmth overcame him as he looked at the legacy of Osiris. Beautiful, beautiful plume! He removed a glove, and when he felt the soft plume with its spike at its base, he closed his eyes a second to revel in the feel of it between his fingers. He thought absently that he had walked a thousand metres, not counting the extreme difficulty of climbing, across terrain that had grown more and more inhospitable, to find the treasure – a time of six hours into the darkness with only the tepid illumination of his wrist light as guide. Carefully, he prepared to slide the feather into his empty cylinder, giving a sigh of relief as he sealed it. He closed his eyes a second. It was as if the cylinder became warm in his hand and its content glowed with new-found peace. Then he reached back with his hand to clip it into the side pocket of his backpack.

 He heard a rumble above him and even as he looked up, knew that a snow bank had dislodged, probably disturbed by his own treading over it earlier. Now, ducking instinctively, he slipped, and when he tried to find his footing, found nothing.

 Ethan gave a long cry as his body, encumbered by the weight of his pack, impelled forward and over the edge. He bumped once against a jutting rock and then knew no more as he plunged downward, the backpack lunging over his head, creating a momentum impossible to stop.  Another jutting rock. The force of the impact flung him into the air and down, down, down, landing with a sickening thud below, thirty metres down.

 "Kathryn..." he murmured before he lost consciousness.

 ********************** 

 "And this," gushed Admiral Nechayev, seemingly oblivious of the frosty air, "concludes the presentation of the Poison Dart, designed by cadets Janeway-Bellamy and Rollins."

There was loud applause from all the senior cadets as well as the third year students who had attended the presentation of the practical application in shuttle design and engineering on the grounds outside the Academy. Ten teams had worked on their crafts, which ranged from ultra modern impractical-looking flitters to escape pods, runabouts and small, compact shuttles such as the Poison Dart. Nechayev looked pleased. Icheb glanced at James, nodding his head in mutual pleasure. It wasn't easy to impress Admiral Nechayev, and her warm acknowledgement of their work was a balm to them both.

 "So, when can we fly our little babies?" one of the seniors asked. "They have all been tested and are good to go."

 Nechayev gave the unfortunate senior an icy stare. "All craft will be returned to Utopia Planitia. They may only be claimed once you have completed this course and graduated."

 There was a cry of disappointment. The cadets though, took it in good spirit. They were aware of the rules, and Icheb thought Cadet G'Kor was just trying to capitalise on the momentum of Nechayev's good humour.

 "No one can flit around anyway, Icheb," James whispered to him. "We have a long haul to the finals. I'm ready to go without sleep for the next five months..."

 "Same here. Think we can stay awake for four days at a time?"

 "Hell, there's nothing like trying. I plan on being in the top two of our graduating class, Icheb."

 "Top two... That leaves no room for error then."

 "You bet!"

 "Dismissed!" Admiral Nechayev's voice sounded, and the cadets started filing back to the Academy building.

 "Cadet Janeway-Bellamy."

 He had already started walking when she called him. He stopped, looking at James.

 "James, I - ..."

 "See you later, Icheb," James said, patting his back. "While you face the harridan, G'Kor and I will be looking at the new specifications of the remodelled Delta Flyer."

 "Fine. You go ahead."

 Only when everybody had left did Icheb take a step in Nechayev's direction. She stood near the Poison Dart. Illogically Icheb thought that Nechayev reminded him of a poison dart, one that inflicted nothing but pain and shame on the hapless cadets who crossed her. Still, today, their own shuttle craft had inspired a bit of good humour in her. He hoped it remained with her until she had finished with him.

 "You wish to speak with me," he stated.

 "You did the engineering work on the Poison Dart, Cadet.  A fresh new concept of thinking.  You have a bright future ahead of you. I commend you. You may tell the others that I've given you a severe dressing down. And you may think up your own excuse."

 Icheb blinked. Admiral Nechayev actually smiled, transforming her hard appearance, making her look even attractive.

 "Thank you, Admiral. I have had good teachers in my parents."

 "I understand that Admiral Janeway is currently on Ketarcha Prime."

 "I understand that might be seen as prying, Admiral," he responded stiffly.

 "Please, I didn't mean to pry. I've never been on a good footing with your parents, but you have been under a lot of strain lately. It's common knowledge around Headquarters, Cadet, that Admiral Janeway has gone to offer comfort to her former first officer. She took leave of absence… An unusual thing for her to do considering…" Nechayev paused.

 "What she left behind, Admiral?" he asked, unwillingly drawn to confess to her some of his own feelings.

 "Yes, I guess. I...uh...wish to be friends..."

 Icheb stared long at her, surprised that he could see uncertainty in the woman's eyes, the dark rings under them. In fact, there was a general tiredness and lack of cheer which he knew for certain now the other cadets had missed because their reverence of her was too extreme for them to notice that here too, was another lonely being caught up in the lives and destinies of two persons who meant the world to him. Nechayev hungered for peace. It was as clear to him now as if she had told him in so many words. Commander Bellamy had never disguised his dislike of her and Admiral Janeway kept her distance from this stern woman, who had given her so much grief at the debriefings and court-martial.

 "Is that why you have asked me to stay behind, Admiral? So that you can tell me this?"

 "I am not a monster."

 "You are not. But I cannot offer you what you seek, Admiral."

 His  words unsettled her. Her expression changed. She seemed to be engaged in a great battle to keep her emotions in check.

 "How do you know what I seek, Icheb Janeway-Bellamy?"

 "I can only tell you that they don't hate you," he added, taking another step forward. "That is a beginning, is it not?"

 "Yes…yes, I suppose it is." She smiled again. "It is a beginning. I’m not proud of the pain I caused both of them."

 "Admiral, I am not human. I was raised as a Borg. I do not understand human nature, but I have  come to understand my parents. I can tell you they do not burden themselves with hatred. When you talk to them again, you might just be surprised."

  _Even as I am so uncertain of Admiral Janeway returning to my father..._

 After a short pause Nechayev smiled as she pointed in the direction of the Poison Dart. "You have designed quite a nifty little shuttle – "

 "James and I, Admiral," he reminded her with a returning smile. "We're very proud of our Poison Dart. She is nippy and quite fast. With the new gel pack technology, it's a machine that will match our thoughts, as it were, and become an extension of our bodies. We've taken her on a test flight. I have to wait five months before I can take her on her maiden voyage – "

 It was bitingly cold. Nechayev began to shiver as she gave in to the harshness of the elements. "Who knows? You might have to take the Poison Dart up sooner than you think," she said as she touched his arm and indicated they return to the warmth of the Academy foyer.

 "Why do you say that, Admiral? Do you perhaps know something of which I am not aware?"

 "No, Cadet Icheb," she replied with a crooked smile. "I'm thinking of buying affection."

 "It won't work…"

 "I know. Just testing the reaction of the Academy's brightest and best. Did you know that your mother was the best in her senior year?"

 "No, I did not," he replied, knowing his mother to be wholly without the urge to sing her own praises. "But it doesn't surprise me. My…mother… I'm not certain she will return home, to us…"

 "She returned home after seven years in the Delta Quadrant, fighting to keep her crew united, fighting to keep going, just plain…fighting. She will return to her family, where she belongs."

 "You know?"

 "I know that if she made you and Commander Bellamy a promise, she would never renege on it."

 "Next you will tell me that I should be patient, that she will come home." He couldn't mask his bitterness.

 "I'll tell you to have faith," said Nechayev, touching his arm again.

 Icheb sighed. He nodded. He liked Admiral Nechayev a little better now. She was as human as the next person. A lonely woman who needed company, who sometimes wished to conduct a simple conversation without going to war over it.

 "Thank you, Admiral. I'll – "

 When his commbadge gave a low, almost inaudible buzz accompanied by a thin beep, he knew something was wrong.

 "Cadet, is anything the matter? You have gone quite pale," Nechayev exclaimed.

 "I may have to take the Poison Dart on her maiden voyage sooner than I thought, Admiral."

 "What's wrong?"

 "I don't know. But the dogs are at Beaver's Lodge. They carry transponders, set to alert me or Lieutenant Ayala if my…father doesn't return to the lodge within twenty four hours. Then we know that something must be wrong. The transponders have been activated. It's the first time it has happened. My father is in peril…"

 He wanted to run out instantly, just run. He felt a sting behind his eyelids. He blinked several times, surprised that his eyes felt wet suddenly.

 "I'll go with you, Icheb," he heard Admiral Nechayev say. At that moment his commbadge beeped.

 "Ayala to Icheb."

 When he tapped his badge, his hand was shaking.

 "Icheb here, Lieutenant. Yes, I've received the signal. My father is missing… I'm leaving for Beaver's Lodge right away…"

 "I'll follow you. Ayala out."

 "Come," said Nechayev. "We must go."

 "Admiral, with respect. I would rather James Rollins accompany me."

 After a momentary hesitation she nodded. "Fine. You take Cadet Rollins and I'll alert Medical to be on standby... Commander Bellamy may be injured."

 "Thank you, Admiral. I appreciate your help."

 Ten minutes later, they were airborne with James at the helm. He wanted James to hurry. It was snowing in the mountains of Oregon. If Ethan Bellamy had been hiking the peaks, he would be in serious danger, perhaps lying somewhere....

 Only then did Icheb wonder again why his mother couldn't know what his father was suffering.

 ************ 

 "Say, Icheb," James started as they touched down near the broken body of Ethan Bellamy, "we designed the Poison Dart in the nick of time. Now look where we can land…"

 Icheb didn't reply. He was out before James could speak again. He stumbled through the snow as he reached Ethan. His father was stiff and blue in the face, one blue hand clamped tightly around a metal cylinder they usually utilised for water.

 "Dad!" he exclaimed as he touched Ethan's ice-cold cheek.

 Meanwhile Ayala had arrived, transported from where he had landed his own shuttle; without speaking, he ran a quick scan. Icheb heard the barking dogs and when he turned quickly to look in that direction, the dogs were bounding through the snow towards them. They were instantly all over Ethan. Icheb pushed Conor away, to little avail as the dog kept licking his master's face. Finally, James took hold of the dogs, though he too, had a hard time keeping them in check. Then, from somewhere, they heard a sharp whistling sound. The dogs yanked so hard that they pulled James along for a few metres, dragging him literally through the snow.

 "Hey, where're you going with me?" he yelled.

 When he released them, they bounded off in the snow again to the origin of the whistling. It registered absently with Icheb that it was Diego Ayala who had whistled. Ayala had meanwhile snapped the tricorder close.

 "Too many broken bones," he said. "I'll transport him to my shuttle."

 "What about his head, Lieutenant?"

 Icheb noticed the deep gash in Ethan's skull that stained his white hair red. For once he blessed the cold. The bleeding could have been worse.

 "Concussion. He'll have a doozy of a headache when he comes to."

 Which happened at the second Ayala spoke. Ethan Bellamy groaned, trying to move his head. When Icheb tried to take the cylinder from him, he groaned louder, the hand gripping the object tighter than ever.

 "No…"

 "You are hurting…"

 "You came in the Poison Dart, son," Ethan said, his tongue thick, his voice slurring, yet tinged with awe. He was about to lose consciousness again.

 "Please, you must not speak now. We're taking you to hospital – "

 "Your mother…"

 "I'll let her know."

 "She won't come. I've made my peace with that."

 Ethan's eyes closed. They made him as comfortable as they could. James collected Ethan's equipment that lay strewn around. Icheb noticed how his father clung to the cylinder in his hand. He looked worriedly at Ayala. Ayala appeared unruffled as he tapped his commbadge.

 "Ayala to Diego. Son, beam Commander Bellamy to the shuttle, on my mark. Don't take that thing from his hand, okay?"

 "Sure, Dad! Dad, the dogs are barking like mad…"

 Seconds later, Ayala stood up and looked at Icheb.

 "Your father has been lying here about eight hours. If he hadn't been so thickly insulated, he might have died. I took a route across the Peaks. That was some hike…"

 "I know. My father is living dangerously," he said as he and James prepared to board the Poison Dart again.

 ************

 Icheb was a worried cadet as he looked at the figure of his father on the bed at Starfleet Medical. Ethan was cleaned up, his hair washed and the gash healed. He was no longer blue in the face and hands. In fact, his colour had returned although his eyes remained closed. Ethan had refused to release the cylinder he had clutched tenaciously during his ordeal. His father had plunged thirty metres, hitting ice outcrops on his way down. What had he been doing? Icheb wondered. Whatever it was had to do with the contents of the cylinder. No one could touch it, no one knew what was inside. It might well have been empty. The way he clung to it suggested that there was something inside he treasured.

 But Ethan Bellamy had stopped talking. He remained resolute and tight-lipped about his solo expedition into the mountains. Icheb knew that Ethan wandered off into the mountains, ice climbing, or sailing on Deer Lake or scaling the cliffs at the shore mostly because he just got the inspiration to create new stories, but also in an attempt to forget his woes. Funny thing, he thought. His father never drank himself into a stupor, though Icheb had read that men and women sometimes did that in order to forget.

 Ethan Bellamy was not like other men.

 He found ways, and if he couldn't find ways, he created new ones in order to insulate himself and hide his most precious feelings if he felt they were exposed.

 Or, like now, if he wanted to forget. Physical endurance was often a method he chose in order to purge himself of any thoughts that provoked new pain. He had been Borg, and the cold impassiveness, the proclivity to proclaim everything that meant anything in life as irrelevant if it disturbed the order of things, had been a part of him for a very long time. Icheb knew what it was like to be part of a single mind, and so did Ethan, every time he had transformed into Borg.

 Even more intensely now, when his father had given his heart to a woman whom the crew of Voyager thought should marry Chakotay, Ethan Bellamy wanted to protect his heart, for he was losing it again.

 Icheb gave a sigh when Ethan finally opened his eyes and stared directly at him.

 "I made a fool of myself. I should hate her but I can't," he said with an honesty that was disconcerting.

 "Yet you cling to her memory," Icheb replied.

 "It may be all I will ever have. Don't take it away from me."

 "I won't. You are not happy."

 "Of course I am not," Ethan bit back. "I will go to Beaver's Lodge and drown my sorrows in good Chivas Regal."

 "I never thought of you as a coward – "

 "Get out, Icheb."

 "Dad?"

 "Leave me alone, will you? I need…time… Sorry, son."

 The passion to defend himself welled like a tidal wave inside Icheb. He had watched Ethan move like the walking dead for months after Kathryn Janeway left and Ethan in turn left his son in the cold, ignoring him. Icheb felt the unaccustomed sting of tears when he looked at Ethan lying on the bed, the metallic cylinder clutched tightly in his hand. His lips trembled and he knew not how to stop the trembling or the quivering in his voice when he spoke.

 "My real parents were not really parents at all. I hardly knew them. I was nothing to them but a tool. I had no frame of reference for love and affection, pain, denial, betrayal and solace until I met you and Captain Janeway. You lie there and you think only of your own sorrow and drowning it in wine. "

 "Stop that, Icheb – "

 "You know what, Dad? I wish I were back on a Borg vessel with ocular implants and an exoskeleton, a neural transceiver that could connect me to the hive mind again..."

 "Dammit, Icheb! It's not - "

 "And then I would never again have to feel what I feel now. I would be able to dismiss everything that has happened in the past few months – with you, me, my mother, your hurt, her hurt, mine – as utterly and completely irrelevant."

 "Icheb!"

 "I hurt too, Dad. Never forget that."

 Icheb had never spoken in such an impassioned voice in his life. He turned away from his shocked father and hastened outside, where the icy air could fan the heat of his indignation. Long he stood, his face cast heavenward. When finally he decided that he'd gazed enough at the cloudy, murky skies where silver linings were either hidden or consumed by the demons of his hurt, he looked away into the distance.

 When his eyes had lost their glazed state and his sanity had returned, the long walkway from the landing pads to the hospital came into view, like a hazy road in the desert. But the mirage remained, moved towards him in deliberate, yet infinitely small steps.

 Icheb froze. Recognition brought tears, long denied in Borg cold storage, spilling from his eyes, out and away, not even touching his cheeks.

 His heart began racing, galloping like a wild stallions.

 For out of the hazy, shimmering mirage in the distance walked Kathryn Janeway.

 And then Icheb started running.

 

**************

 END CHAPTER 18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	19. OSIRIS'S FEATHER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually the final chapter. Following this will be the epilogue, uploaded as chapter 20

* * *

 

Kathryn's heart burned with fierce pleasure as she saw Icheb running towards her. Judging by his tears, his wide smile, and the way his arms opened to enfold her in a suffocating hug, at least one man in her life was happy to see her. Despite the cold, despite the intense conflict that had raged since she left Earth for Ketarcha Prime, despite her constant guilt about leaving Ethan and Icheb, despite Chakotay who had begged her to stay and despite the great affection she felt for his little girl - she was glad to be home. Icheb's reaction alone made up for everything.

 Even if Ethan never accepted her back in his life, she was happy that she had made a decision that was for her and her alone. In that, she had been glad that she did go to Ketarcha Prime. She needed to find herself, needed to be with Chakotay, to come to important decisions about her life and her future. It was a decision that meant pain for one and joy for the other, and however difficult it was for her, it did settle within her at last a great sense of peace and homecoming.

 When she wriggled against Icheb, he relaxed his grip, holding her a little away from him, though not breaking contact. He looked so tall and attractive, so stripped of his usual composure as he smiled a quivering smile. Kathryn thought she had never seen him quite so emotional.

 "I'm so sorry, Icheb, that I didn't say goodbye to you," she said, her throat thick with emotion.

 "Everything is forgiven. My friends' faith was greater than my own. They knew you would return. It is I who should seek pardon."

 She smiled tenderly, her palm cupping his cheek.

 "You are more human than the humans, Icheb, and far more generous."

 "Is it what they call closure? That you went to Ketarcha Prime and found it there?"

 Again, she marvelled at his intuition, nodding in agreement.

 "That was exactly it."

 "Then you would have been distracted from finding it had you come to say goodbye to me. You would not have left and you would never have found rest."

 "I know, son. It doesn't lessen my guilt, but I am comforted that you understand. Thank you..."

 Then her eyes went past Icheb, to the hospital where Ethan lay. She breathed in deeply as her gaze met Icheb's again. His eyes were smiling and it elicited a similar response from her, too.

 "Mom...go easy on him, okay?"

 

"Icheb?"

 "I love you and I know you love me as your son. You will never change towards me and that is my assurance that you will always be there for me. I - "

 Icheb paused, turned his head in the direction of the hospital, then faced her again. She frowned. He cleared his throat.

 "We had words..."

 His expression was priceless. He looked almost comical in his distress at having fought with Ethan. As if he could never imagine that it was entirely human to fight with one's parents or come off second best. Icheb didn't look as if he'd come off second best and his eyes showed it. He hated hurting Ethan.

 "He loves you, Icheb."

 "I know. But please, go to him. He…needs you, Mom. I'll be okay." Icheb gave a broad grin. "Very okay, now that you're back."

 Quite impulsively, Icheb kissed her on her cheek. Then he fled down the path she had just walked.

 Kathryn turned to look at Icheb's retreating figure. He had been overjoyed to see her, yet his concern was for Ethan. They'd had words; it must have been intense for Icheb to have run out as he did.

 When he finally vanished from sight, she turned towards the hospital building, giving a sigh of trepidation at the prospect of facing Ethan.

 Only the truth, unvarnished, however painful and raw it might be, would be good enough. Ethan had the right to know from her own mouth, a verbal testimony of everything that had happened, of her decision and why, in circumstances that were difficult in the extreme to withstand, she had to say what she had come to tell him. Not only that, she felt he deserved to know her feelings, even if the prospect of his rejection was as hard to swallow now as it had been the past few weeks. It was what had kept her from contacting him, a fear that ate into her that he might show her the door.

 I've come this far. I'm not turning back...

 As she walked towards the hospital, to Ethan who, judging by Icheb's total surprise, wasn't expecting her, her thoughts went to Chakotay, his little girl, his deceased wife and his request. Chakotay had been very persuasive and the offer had been more than tempting.

 "I'll make it very difficult for you to leave, Kathryn," Chakotay had said where they were standing on the platform that jutted from the edge of the great canyon of Ketarcha's first city. It had reminded her of Earth's Grand Canyon.

 "I came here to offer you comfort, to stand by my friend in need. You know that."

 Chakotay's eyes had darkened. She sensed his thoughts, sensed his intention. He had been distraught at Seven's death. His little daughter had cried herself to sleep almost every night since Seven died. Kathryn had spent most nights sitting with Katie until the child fell into a restless sleep. Then when she got up to leave the room, she'd find Chakotay staring at her almost guiltily.

 "And I know that you still feel something for me," he retorted.

 He had stood there, his words a challenge to her, wanting her to refute them.

 How could he know what she felt? They had grown apart, and that had been the first shock in her evolution away from Chakotay. It had been so hard letting him go, letting go, that those nights she dreamed of him, it was always that he'd leave his wife and take her back. Now, he stood on the platform facing her, the sorrow subdued after two months. It had surprised her that he could so quickly find closure on Seven's death. He still missed her, Kathryn knew, but it was a longing that was tinged with... Kathryn sighed. It was wrong of her to think, to imagine she had sensed it at all. She wished she had been mistaken in her intuition, for intuition did sometimes fail to produce the correct presumption. He had relocated to Ketarcha in the first place because he felt he needed to put distance between them, because she, his former love, still distracted him.

 A week after her arrival, Chakotay had caught her in his arms after she had finally managed to tuck little Katie in. The child had been fractious, weepy, and Kathryn had sung to her old lullabies her own mother had sung to her as a small child. When she moved away from the cot at last, sighing with relief that Katie was finally sleeping soundly, it was to knock right into Chakotay who had entered the room quietly.

 Without a word, he had kissed her. It was a searing kiss that wanted to determine, to detect, to supplant, to entrench his ownership of her, to prove to her that her feelings for him had never changed. She had fought him, pushed him violently from her and warned him that such behaviour left very little of their friendship intact. He was desecrating his wife's memory, she had told him in low, angry tones because they were standing in the sleeping baby's room. Chakotay had looked guilty for perhaps two minutes before he apologised and strode quickly out of the room.

 Dazed by the realisation that his kiss left her cold, she had sat down in the rocking chair he had made for Seven, tears flowing down her cheeks at the knowledge that she had just lost something very precious to her.

 She had been friendly over the next few days, caring for the toddler until he could find a child minder to take care of her during the day when he was working. He had been civil towards her and only on one or two nights, when he had cried out in his sleep and she realised he had had a nightmare, had she gone to sit with him. She had held his hand, offered solace, wanted to cry when he cried for his dead wife. In the morning, he was embarrassed by his behaviour and then she'd spontaneously hug him and tell him he was only human.

 She cared about him. Only, the stunning realisation that she could no longer love him, that he was now just the friend, the close friend who had been her first officer in their seven year long journey home, was all that remained.

 That was all. Maybe there was even less of that and it saddened her, filling her with a sense of mourning for something that had passed, that she would never have again.

 She had dreamed of Ethan often and felt over and over the shame of leaving him in the way that she did, with no hope of returning home to him. But, she sighed, he had never told her that he loved her, and that last utterance of his in his lounge had sounded so cynical, she was reminded again of the early Ethan who dismissed even his own life as irrelevant, except for his art.

 Her heart had ached for Chakotay, for his efforts to once again woo her into his life and his bed.

 "I know that men often need women in their lives," she had told him. "They fear loneliness, they fear not having a companion, one who would be in their beds as well as make them, Chakotay."

 "You are more than that, you know that. You are far more than that! I love you," he had uttered passionately. Overhead, she had heard the cry of a bird and she had wondered idly if there were larks singing near Beaver's Lodge.

 "I cannot deny what you think you still feel for me…"

 "I don't think. Look, I loved Annika. We had a very special bond, Kathryn, one that - "

 "Also," she continued, not waiting for him to finish his sentence, "some relationships exist and thrive on the physical."

 "We had that yes, nothing more. I need more, need what only you can give me, Kathryn. Now, I'm the one crying for fulfilment. I hunger for you."

 She had thought how his words exposed his selfishness.

 "Your wife has just died."

 "That's a harsh reminder of my state, but I know that my love for you is as strong as it was when we were on New Earth."

 He had to bring up New Earth, their Paradise, their special Idyll. But Paradise and Idyll had a way of fading, of passing, leaving nothing of it behind except sweet memories.

 "You cannot forget Annika so quickly - "

 "I will never forget her. She is Katie's mother. She will always be in a corner of my heart. But Kathryn, it was you who came and comforted me and told me how things must pass. All things pass and my hurt and sadness have lessened. Now I tell you that I need you. I cannot deny it, have never denied it. I loved two women. Annika knew and we came here so that I could give her the full measure of my love for her. It was beautiful and it was bountiful. But my heart still yearns for you…"

 "You fear being alone. You want me just so you don't have to be alone."

 "Even Katie loves you, you know that."

 "Chakotay..."

 "Kathryn, marry me, please. I will make it good for us. It used to be good. I know you have Bellamy, but..."

 "Yes, I have Bellamy. What of that?"

 "I know you can love me again."

 "Again?"

 She had sounded aghast, astonished at his casual dismissal of her relationship with Ethan.

 "Yes. Please, I cannot be alone again."

 And then Chakotay had gone down on his knees, there on the platform overlooking Ketarcha Prime's greatest canyon, where the Ketarchan condors lived, their cries echoing in the depths and in the heights. Chakotay had gone down on his knees, his eyes full of love for her. He had taken her hand in his and when he spoke, his voice was soft, insistent, encouraging and pleading, all at the same time.

 "Chakotay…"

 "Marry me, Kathryn."

 *

 Now, Kathryn drew in a deep breath as she stepped into the foyer of Starfleet Medical. Strange how she had been in a hurry to come home after her decision was made! It had been only yesterday - the day they'd found Ethan - when she had received the message of the accident. She'd already made up her mind that she would face Ethan and brave his wrath, his cynicism, his rejection... Icheb had hailed her on subspace to inform her that Ethan had plunged down a ravine on the Coniston Peaks. Ethan, who had broken both legs in three places, one arm in two places, cracked several ribs, cracked open his skull and lived.

 Ethan whom, Icheb had said, had called her name in his delirium.

 Ethan to whom she must tell of her answer to Chakotay's proposal of marriage.

 *********

 Kathryn breathed deeply again as the door to Ethan's room opened and she stepped inside. He was standing near the window and she realised that he must have seen her arrival, must have seen her reunion with Icheb. Sighing, she watched as he turned to face her.

 He looked haggard. There were dark smudges under his eyes. He had lost weight. His hair had grown longer in the two months that she had been gone. He had a two-day old stubble. His eyes had lost the sharpness, the alertness that always made her so aware of him. There was a droop to his mouth that was so uncharacteristic that she wanted to rush to him and wrap her arms round him and soothe his brow. If he had had his old familiar, cynical appearance, she could have dealt with that, because that Ethan she could handle and challenge.

 Not this broken man before her.

 "Ethan…"

 "Have you come to gloat?" he asked in a hollow voice.

 "No."

 "Why are you here?"

 "Because I want to be?" she said, her voice a question more than a statement.

 "You made your feelings very clear."

 "What I made clear, Ethan, was that I needed to make a few decisions - "

 "That wasn't what you said. He needed you, he needed you by his side and if I'm not mistaken, probably back in his bed."

 His words struck like daggers into her. How could she deny that she had said Chakotay needed her?   

 "You're very bitter. I can't blame you for feeling like that, Ethan. I'm not proud of the way I left you behind - "

 "I'm collateral damage, Kathryn, didn't you know? Someone must be left behind…You left Icheb behind. He didn't deserve it…"

 "Perhaps if I explained,"  she started lamely, a far cry from the boldness she thought she would have. Ethan rubbed in her guilt.

 "He under-performed, Kathryn. He's never done that before…"

 Ethan cursed under his breath, then walked back to sit on the bed. He rubbed his temple and she realised that the prolonged standing had tired him. He had suffered a concussion and, knowing Ethan, he had probably demanded that Doctor Paris not treat him for his headaches.

 "There's something I need to tell you," she said, walking up to him, but his hand gestured for her to stop.

 "If you came here only to walk away again, Janeway, I don't want to hear it."

 "You're going to have to hear it, whether I walk from here or not. You're stronger than that, Bellamy," she bit out, instantly remorseful for hurting him more.

 It was the last thing she wanted to do. She felt bad enough about Icheb. Their son had been right. If she had come to Icheb to say goodbye to him, then seeing him would have made her decide to say. Thinking about it now, she realised that that was what she would have done. Icheb was innocent; he had no part in her argument with Ethan. She would not have gone to Ketarcha Prime then, and subsequently, she knew with sudden insight, she might never have found closure on Chakotay. Closure was what she needed.

 A few seconds she waited, the air heavy with tension, with anticipation. Ethan's eyes glowed darkly with fear and anger.

 "Whatever strength I had was spent making peace with the fact you were never coming back. Leave me with some dignity. Go, don't come back..."

 "You are determined to punish me."

 "I am determined to save myself!" he snapped.

 Despite the fear she felt, the way his words stabbed at her and made her want to leave like he suggested, she knew she had to press forward. He was hurting like hell and he was letting her feel the full fury of that hurt. For a moment she hesitated, thinking about leaving anyway. But she was no quitter and she had made up her mind that she was going to face the consequences of his reaction. She was no longer on Voyager, no longer the commander in charge of any situation in the Delta Quadrant. But she was a woman in love with a man who stood before her, a man who believed she would walk away again.

 This was her life and her very existence and she was going to fight for it. Her strength and resolve filled her as she moved slowly towards Ethan. She saw in his eyes the battle between fear, anger and need. Kathryn waited for the storm to finish its raging. Endless seconds she stood, poised to flee from the room or to rush into his arms. Then, when the fear disappeared and the anger abated and only need was left, she stepped against him, her arms enfolding his emaciated frame.

 Ethan gave a groan as his own arms, at first hesitant, then crushing, framed her body. She gave a moan of pleasure as she rested her head against his chest. He felt so familiar, so beloved that her eyes welled with tears. She was back in Ethan's arms. The feeling of peace that infused her whole being was overwhelming, a giddy rush through her body. But her sense of homecoming was short-lived as Ethan gripped her shoulders and held her away from him so that she had to look up into his face. The anger was back in his eyes.

 "Say what you have to say, Kathryn, and be done with it. I have survived before. I will survive again - "

 "What?"

 "Don't prolong my pain, sweetheart," he said, the endearment slipping from him. He groaned as he pulled her face against him again. "God...don't..."

 She broke the contact between them; then gazing deeply into his eyes, she pushed him back gently so that he lay against the pillows. There was a chair for her to sit on, but on an impulse, she joined him on the narrow bed and nestled against him, forcing him to shift so that she could lie in his arms. Ethan, his body rigid at first, became soft as he relaxed. He gave a soft moan as she pulled the cover over them. Sighing, she pressed closer to him and again she marvelled at the way he held her close.

 "Only so you don't have to fall off the bed and blame me for the inconvenience," he muttered.

 For the first time since she'd entered the room, she smiled. It was going to be alright, she realised, feeling the new happiness bubbling inside her. She had been so afraid... She felt bolstered, ready to tell him about everything that had transpired on Ketarcha Prime between her and Chakotay, ready to share with him her heart.

 "You were right, Ethan," she started softly, "about Chakotay. You were always right. I have been a fool many times over."

 She hid her joy when a deep sigh escaped Ethan, and she felt his lips against her hair. Her hand rested on his chest and her eyes closed when his own hand covered hers. He squeezed her hand tightly and she realised how tense he was, even if his body felt relaxed against her.

 "Tell me how I can be right, Kathryn, and deliver me from my misery…"

 There was a long pause. She raised her face to his, briefly kissed his cheek before snuggling against him again.

 "He asked me to marry him."

 "To warm his bed."

 "Yes," she sighed. "To warm his bed, to be a mother to little Katie, to be his constant companion. He still loves me…"

 "I know. You and Seven of Nine were two parts that completed him," Ethan conceded. "One the physical and the other the more spiritual, perhaps. What did you tell him?"

 "I told Chakotay that I didn't love him anymore. I told him that I stopped loving him a long time ago. He…insisted that my feelings for him hadn't changed, that I would agree to marry him and remain with him on Ketarcha Prime…" Another short pause. "Ketarcha Prime is a very beautiful place. It is easy to see why Chakotay chose that planet to settle. I comforted him, offered him the solace he needed, cared for the baby too. I think he thought it would be easier to convince me to stay given the fact that I did make it all the way to Ketarcha to be with him."

 "But?"

 "My eyes opened finally, Ethan," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "It wasn't that I wanted to pay him back because he wasn't there when I needed him. It wasn't that, you know. I just realised…" Her throat became thick, the words too difficult to mouth.

 Ethan caressed her cheek, brushed her hair away from her face.

 "I realised," she continued, stifling a sob, "that after all, I owed Chakotay nothing. We had a friendship, a beautiful one, Ethan. There wasn't a time on Voyager that I couldn't count on him. He was always there, supporting me, fighting with me, loving me, owning me. I thought that such depths would never be negated by the sadness of change. I thought that my life was complete with him in it as the friend who would do anything for me, even die for me. I thought we had something that would never come to an end."

 "Then, Kathryn? What happened?" she heard Ethan breathe the words against her hair.

 "Homecoming happened. Too many things I had never factored into an equation for happiness. He married, I felt unfulfilled, he left for Dorvan, I was left alone and lonely, I guess. Then, you happened…"

 "Homecoming…who would have thought."

 "Yes. When I thought about it in the last few months, I was forced to face the fact that we were no longer in extraordinary circumstances, the kind of situations where we fed off one another's loneliness, where we shared our misery, our joy. Every time we fought the enemy, Voyager's crew formed a line of attack, and attacked as one body…."

 "It's the way of prolonged missions in deep space," he said softly, turning so that he could gaze into her eyes. The haunting look was fading and it made her heart leap with elation.

 "I know. We no longer had to fight a common enemy; we no longer had to cling together and fight as one. Voyager was over, and so the dire circumstances were no longer there. We drifted naturally, each one to his or her own families, new lives, new circumstances…everything. Even for me."

 "Even for you?"

 "I told Chakotay I couldn't marry him. I told him that I didn't want to marry him, even if his knees were sealed to the platform over the canyon. I told him that I'm not sorry for saying those words, for I had told him before of my feelings. I told him…"

 Kathryn sighed, clung to Ethan and buried her face against him for several heady moments and wept for a few seconds. It was the way Chakotay had dismissed her feelings for Ethan that finally, irrevocably, opened her eyes.

 It was over, she realised. All the tension, the way she had to fight Chakotay off, his insistence that she still loved him and finally, dealing with his disregard of her feelings, of her as a person, respecting her and respecting her wishes. That alone had hurt her so deeply that she had had difficulty trying to reconcile the man on his knees on Ketarcha with the man who had lived with her on New Earth and who did everything for her. Ethan was right. When men fought, they didn't  take any rules into account and that was the way Chakotay fought for his happiness and a future he hoped would include Kathryn Janeway.

 "What did you tell him, Kathryn?"

 Suddenly agitated, Kathryn got up from the bed and walked over to the window. From there, she could see the path where Icheb had run towards her. She rubbed her arms, although it wasn't cold inside the room. Outside snow had begun to fall - flakes that drifted aimlessly to earth. She wondered where Icheb had gone to, wondered suddenly about his words, that he and Ethan had had an argument. Sometime, when the time was right, she would hear about it from Icheb. Or Ethan... Turning, she saw that Ethan was sitting up too, though he didn't move from the bed to join her.

 "I told him how a man found me near to dying on his property and brought me back to life. I told him how that man became my anchor in a raging sea of darkness and how I clung to that anchor. I told him how an Angry Warrior would once have done for me what Ethan Bellamy had done then and what Ethan Bellamy is doing now. I told him that I'd made my peace that Angry Warrior was no longer a part of my life, a part of me."

 Kathryn drew in a deep breath. She saw Ethan through a haze of tears, and she didn't have any conscious idea of how or when those tears came to fill her eyes and rolled unchecked down her cheeks.

 "He destroyed you, Kathryn," she heard Ethan say.

 "Yes. He did that. That day, he was on his knees begging me to marry him. Then I told him about you. I told him that Ethan Bellamy became my friend, my mentor, my lover, my..."

 "What, sweetheart?"

 "My beloved. I told him that I fell in love with Ethan Bellamy, that I love Ethan with my whole heart, and my mind and my soul."

 There was another pause in which she struggled to control her emotions. But she remained steadfast, looking him directly in the eyes.

 "Yes…I love you, Ethan." She felt a tear searing her cheek. "I love you. I fought it so hard in the beginning, thinking Chakotay would…" A painful sob escaped. "I have been foolish, all this time. I didn't think I could ever love anyone again, until you…stormed my defences, Ethan. Yes," she whispered softly, "yes, I love you. I am...at your mercy."

 Her hands were trembling. She stood exposed. Not even in her hazy world of helpless depression when Ethan had undressed her and washed her and tended to her most basic needs had she felt so naked as she felt now. She felt weak, her defences completely gone.

 She would have fallen down perhaps if Ethan hadn't moved from the bed and caught her up in his arms.

 Kathryn didn't know how long she stood there, held by him with so much tenderness. He stroked her hair, kissed her tears that wouldn't stop falling. Her body shook with the force of her weeping. Finally, when she could be calm again, she spoke.

 "I've loved you for a long time," she repeated softly, soberly now. "I have no regrets leaving Chakotay on Ketarcha, leaving his adorable little daughter. I couldn't tie myself to an obligation, for if I had done so, I would not have lived. Even if you were never in my life, Ethan, I would still have said no to Chakotay. My reason for turning down his first proposal of marriage on Voyager was the same reason I turned him down again on Ketarcha Prime. I would only have been Kathryn, a warmer of his bed, a mother to his little girl."

 "I'm glad you turned him down, honey. Knowing you, you would have remained unfulfilled..."

 "And then I was in a great hu - "

 "And how did he react to your response?" Ethan asked, breaking her train of thought.

 "Forced to accept that I love you. Forever. Maybe he is in denial. It no longer matters to me. It was our friendship I mourned. Today he'll just be Chakotay, my former first officer.."

 "Oh, Kathryn..." Ethan groaned as he pulled her to him again. "I despaired of ever hearing you say those words! It seems to me I have waited forever for you, long, long before I met you or even knew of you. I will forever live without peace, because you give me no peace. Maybe in time I will learn to like that feeling. I don't ever want to become complacent."

 "Ethan?"

 He held her away from him, but his hands were on her shoulders. The smile on his face faded as he became serious. Her heart pounded madly, it sang a wondrous song as she waited for him to speak.

 "If you are not in my life, my beloved, I will self-destruct. I'm not particularly proud of feeling this vulnerable or this needy. And Kathryn, my darling, I am at _your_ mercy and if mercy is all that you will give me, I await it with every single breath I take as long as I live. I love you so much that it's eating me up inside. I find myself completely, utterly rudderless and empty. Empty, you hear me? Please, please, take this hollow man and make him whole again..."

 She threw herself against him. Ethan's hands were in her hair, holding her head so that he could lower his own, his mouth only millimetres away.

 "I hungered for you," he whispered hoarsely before claiming her mouth in a deeply passionate kiss that burned her up. For several minutes, it was quiet in the room as she lost herself in Ethan's arms, the separation of two months, the pain and anger of their parting melting away as she rejoiced to be back in his arms again, loving him fiercely, proudly, forever.

 Finally they broke the kiss. Kathryn could breathe again sensibly, looking at him with dazed eyes,

 "I was afraid you would reject me," she told him. "That you would tell me you didn't feel the same. I prepared myself to hear the…worst," she said, giving a sob. "Then I'd have left you alone. I am humbled. You have given me a daunting task. I will love you always - "

 "You'd better, Janeway," Ethan retorted gruffly, "if I'm to live to tell my grandchildren how long it took their grandmother to tell me how much she loves me."

 He was tired, she thought, as he caught her up in his arms again. He needed rest.

 "So," she started as she moved back to the bed, "is Ethan Bellamy going to tell me how he came to break so many bones in his body?"

 Ethan's eyes widened in alarm and he drew in a sharp breath.

 "How could I forget!"

 "Forget...what?"

 "Please tell Ethan he's a very forgetful man."

 "You're a very forgetful man," she said, laughing.

 He moved his hand under the pillow and retrieved a cylinder, one they used for drinking water. How couldn't she have felt it when she had lain next to him on the narrow bed? Ethan removed the cap and very gingerly took a feather from it. Kathryn frowned. It was about twenty centimetres long and the edge appeared a darker brown than the softer plumes at its base. A goose feather? she wondered.

 "This. I went to get you this, sweet Kathryn," he said triumphantly.

 "A feather?"

 "Not just any feather. Remember you didn't want me to build you a temple or swim the deepest ocean - "

 "Or tie a lasso round the moon?"

 "Or even climb the highest mountain. I did climb a mountain, mind you…"

 "Yes?" she asked him, in great wonder because Ethan's eyes had turned dark with emotion, his voice gruff.

 "I broke most of the bones in my body to get you this, beloved."

 "You went to great trouble..." she said in awe as she remembered the injuries listed in his medical report.

 "An Egyptian goose flew over the mountains while I was climbing."

 They were on an even level where she could look directly in his face

 "To forget me," she said archly.

 "Shut up, Janeway and pay attention."

 "Kiss me first," she ordered him.

 "They mate for life," he continued, after a very heady kiss, "but I guess you knew that. Only, this goose of the mountains - I called him Osiris - was flying alone and in distress."

 She had turned cold at his words, understanding instantly and intuitively why the feather became important for him. Ethan was Osiris. Her guilt grew ten-fold and her remorse at hurting him intensified. Her eyes filled with tears.

 "And because he would never find his mate again..." she said, her voice tinged with sadness, "you salvaged something from Osiris."

 Ethan kissed her wet cheek, brushing away the tears with his lips. Her eyes closed at the reverent way in which he touched her.

 "It was all I could do," he said softly, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I don't think I consciously thought of bringing it to you, or collecting it for Kathryn; I just had this unbelievable desire - stronger than anything that I have ever felt in my life - to reach the feather and to treasure it forever.  And then it was that I wanted to show you how deep my love is. So yes, my beloved, it's for you..."

 "And you wrote a poem?" she asked, her voice breathy, her heart hammering in the anticipation of hearing his words...

 "Only you would know, but I haven't written it down…yet. It's here," he said, indicating with a forefinger against his temple.

 "For me…"

 

_High above the cliffs of Coniston_

_the mountain goose a plume unsheathed -_

_with might it pulled my heart to you…_

_I send this plume as gift, my dearest,_

_and saying that my love is deep,_

_my all, my soul for you to keep…_

Ethan's voice always arrested her. It changed with his emotions. No doubt it happened with many people, but in Ethan the changes were subtle, almost undetectable. She felt a deep, magical pleasure that she alone, perhaps, could determine his mood simply by listening to his voice. When he was at his cynical worst, the syllables inflected differently, the shift so slight it was hardly noticeable. During the nights when she had woken up distressed, he'd come to sit with her and read to her from his latest novel. Kathryn thought that his voice then was so calm and filled with solace that it was impossible to reconcile it with the man who, only hours before, had been hard and brusque. She loved it when he read to her, for it was his voice that drew her.  There was a silkiness, a fluency that was so apparent she could listen to him read forever.

 That was Ethan.

 He recited the poem about his ragged hike in the mountains and his sight of the doomed Osiris. It seemed each word that left on his breath and was introduced to the world was born in that moment, instinctively given birth to, full of an impact that had never been chiselled into order or sculpted into beauteous shape. They just were...perfect.

 So the words fell from his lips - smooth, fluent, bursting with meaning, with portent, throbbing with intensity. Ethan stood there and it was as if simple, aching thought was given life. Did great poets do that? Were the words simply beautifully modulated sounds that became an expression of what he felt? Not about Osiris, but about Ethan? Her?

 Long before he finished, her head had fallen against his chest. They were quiet, the words of his poem still echoing in the stillness of the room. Was it the very air that moved as their hearts beat in unison? She couldn't remember.

 She looked up finally, gazed into his eyes that were wet, wet...

 "You love me..." the words fell from her lips in great wonder. "I can see your soul..."

 His throat worked as he struggled to speak. Did Ethan cry?

 "I see your soul, my beloved. I saw it that day you lay on the damp ground in winter, sick to the bone, and I saw your soul..."

 Again there was a pause. She reached to kiss him, awed at this new Ethan, one she knew she was not going to see often. When she finally broke contact, she took his hands in hers.

 "Take me home, Ethan. Take me to Beaver's Lodge..."

 **************

 They were back at Beaver's Lodge. Ethan had taken charge the minute she asked to return home with him. He had promptly threatened to discharge himself if Doctor Paris didn't do so instantly. But Kathryn had insisted that he be treated for his headaches, to which he reluctantly agreed, kissing her while Doctor Paris laughingly administered an injection. Osiris's feather had been placed back in the cylinder with the greatest of care. Ethan had promised he'd mount it for her to keep...

 Until they were both too old to recognise it.

 "I plan on growing old with you, Kathryn, if only to irritate the hell out of you for making me suffer like mad."

 "Well, Bellamy," she replied, "I'll decrypt the codes to your stories and tell the whole world who you really are."

 "Don't worry, Janeway. They'll only see me as the man who is insanely, utterly and irrevocably in love with the most beautiful admiral in the Federation. They'd have no choice but to disbelieve you."

 It felt to Kathryn that the world had righted itself on its axis. All the uncertainty, her indecision, her decisions, her treatment of the men in her life had settled at last. She knew that there would be times in the future that they would experience this crisis or that life-altering decision, but it filled her with great certainty now that they would face it together.

 Icheb had forgiven her, for she had been tearful in her remorse of her treatment of him.

 Ethan… Ethan just loved her unconditionally.

 She knew there would be times he'd be his old, acerbic self. He was probably always going to sip whisky in the early morning on an empty stomach. That wasn't going to change, for he thrived on it. She loved him all the more because of it. His need of her was all too clear, and it was an Ethan that was almost too painful to see. He had been vulnerable as he had never been before in his life and it afforded her the dubious honour of being the object of his vulnerability, the one thing that could destroy him or build him up.

 She sighed contentedly next to the sleeping Ethan. They lay snuggled very close together under their insanely comfortable comforter. They had made love, dozed a little, made love again. Ethan couldn't get enough of her and she had missed him so intensely in the time that she had been away that she had given as much of herself as she could, and had taken as much as she could. She had been hungry, thirsty, and together they drank from their oasis and only when their rage had been slaked, did Ethan fall asleep.

 It had been a time of revelation for them both. He had told her more of his climb and watching Osiris fly away in distress, the whole incident involving his quest for the feather. He told her how he had hoped the dogs' transponders would work and that help would arrive soon, because he was hallucinating. He had dreamed of her in the hours he waited for help, unable to move, in severe pain, drifting in and out of consciousness. She clucked in sympathy, then told him she'd sensed he was in pain and that she couldn't wait to get home. She had been going to hail him when she received Icheb's communication about the accident.

 Shifting so that she could face him, she caressed his hair, his cheek, finding pleasure in charting his familiar features. His hair gleamed whiter, the lines of his face relaxed in sleep, free of the old stress. Her eyes stung with tears.

  _I shall never regret loving Ethan..._

 Now she lay in the darkness, reflecting on her life and Ethan's. He lay breathing evenly, and when minutes later he became agitated in sleep, moaning her name, she rose on her elbow and tried to comfort him.

 Ethan woke with a start, his eyes wide and when they connected with hers, she knew that he had been dreaming, or had a nightmare. His eyes were luminous in the semi-dark, but she could see the stark, raw need in them.

 "I dreamed…" he started.

 "Yes."

 Then, like once before, he gripped her hand tightly in his, to draw from her strength. She tried not to wince at the pain of his grip.

 "Loneliness," he began, "is a void, like dying without a soul to restore you. I visited those dark vales once. Somehow, then, I knew my quest had not ended, that this wayfarer was still travelling in search of himself…" He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again. "I can't go back there again, to knowing that only a void awaits me…"

 "Ethan…"  she whispered, her heart crying for him.

 "Stay this night with me, Kathryn."

 ***************

  Ethan had debated on whether to bring the cello down to the beach. In the end, Kathryn's persuasion had won the day and they had come down in the flitter, with the dogs excitedly bounding out the moment the hatch had opened.

 "The dogs seem happy," she had said, as she watched them run off towards the water's edge.

 "Of course. We haven't had them down here for a while."

 "Did I have to bring an umbrella?"

 "Kathryn…"

 "And the deck chair. Ethan, you know I like - "

 "You need to be comfortable. You might fall asleep, then the reclining back is easier - "

 "I'm not a baby."

 "I noticed."

 "Therefore, I don't need the deck chair."

 "Kathryn," he sighed, "humour me, will you?"

 "Only because I love you so much."

 "Now, I got this nice mohair rug - "

 "Ethan!"

 "Kathryn, please - "

 "Yes, I'll humour you."

 She had given him an icy glare. They had squared off, arguing over every issue that put her in a position of submission, or a sign that he protected her. He had given an inward sigh of relief when she relented, the fight leaving her eyes. He knew that look would soon be back, but for the short period that she was acquiescent, he had to jump in and stake his authority.

 It was the last days of summer and for once, there was bright sunshine today, though it was still cool. He was glad for Kathryn's sake. Once she was reclining on the deck chair with the mohair rug over her legs, she didn't demur, grudgingly smiling her agreement that he had been right all along. Kathryn needed to be out in the sun again and soak up its healing warmth.

 He had taken up a position on a bed of flat rock that formed part of the promontory which separated their favourite beach from the next. The dogs had been running about, though they never disturbed him, occasionally running back to Kathryn. They had prepared well, bringing food and water for the dogs and their own well-stocked picnic basket.

 In the distance, Kathryn's figure appeared small. The umbrella shielded her while she read or rested. They had had lunch an hour ago and he had watched her surreptitiously for some reaction, but Kathryn, he discovered long ago, was a past master at playing her cards close to the chest. She wasn't saying anything, not even a whisper and he had been dying to know.

 He had given her the manuscript of _The Raging Moon_ , finished at last after many drafts, one draft that had Kathryn in tears one day when he announced that he was rewriting the story. Now, finally completed, he had made a copy, bound in soft leather, of the story. Its title was embossed in gold letters. He had given it to her to read like he had promised to do eons ago.

 "Before publication?" she had asked that time.

 "Before publication."

 Now he was waiting for her to finish reading.

 He had been playing scales and arpeggios for perhaps half an hour before he launched into Paganini and Elgar and Boccherini, immersing himself in the sounds of the cello in the open sea air. He was taking chances, he knew, by exposing the instrument to sea spray, but today was a day of celebration. Kathryn had finally recovered and she was reading _The Raging Moon_. And, he was dying to know her reaction.

 The sun glinted on the gold band on his left hand and he smiled. Kathryn wore an identical band. Early in Spring, at the time of his former transformation, they sealed their union in the grounds of  Palings, the Paris property. Kathryn's little goddaughter, Michaela Ayala, and Miral Paris, Tom and B'Elanna's little girl, made the most engaging little flower girls. The two toddlers crept into everyone's heart with their antics. When he had asked Kathryn about the children during their preparations for their wedding, she had given him a narrow-eyed glare.

 "It's not a wedding if there aren't children," Kathryn had said, and he had happily obliged. "I'm hoping to have one or two myself."

 He had almost died again from the joy of hearing Kathryn's desires.

 "T-Two…?"

 "Though I won't be sad if I can't have them…" she had added. "Icheb will marry one day and have children and we'll have our grandchildren. Then their grandfather can shower all his love on them and teach them to play the cello. Maybe one of them will enter the Academy, or Juilliard, or both, then I can teach them quantum mechanics. Or you can teach them all about command track. Did you know there's a sweet young cadet interested in Icheb? Her name is Shaira Khan. James Rollins said something about Icheb shooting her to the moon in the Poison Dart - "

 "Did I tell you you talk too much sometimes?" he asked her, completely bowled over by her enthusiasm and her obvious happiness.

 "I'm merely compensating for my husband-to-be who seems to have lost his tongue."

 "You know I feel very sorry for any young woman interested in our son. She'd have to contend with his admiral mother - "

 "And writer father, cellist and Starfleet Commander, soon to be captain again..."

 He had dreamed of seeing Kathryn happy at last, and in the days leading up to the wedding and their wedding day itself… He couldn't have asked for anything better. Her former crew accepted him and he had felt freer than he had ever felt before among people. Kathryn had glowed and his heart had ached with tenderness seeing how happy she was, how utterly beautiful she looked, taking his breath away. Kathryn had walked to him on the arm of Tuvok, one of her oldest friends and the captain of Voyager. It warmed his heart, seeing Kathryn so at home among her former crew again.

 Icheb had walked around with a huge grin that day. He was scoring superbly in tests and earning top honours once again. He couldn't wait to own the Poison Dart with James Rollins as co-owner. Diego Ayala, Mike's eldest, followed them everywhere. Ethan smiled inwardly. The teenager had great role models in Icheb and James. The two cadets had been hard at work for their finals and had graduated with honours.

 But the day of their wedding had been perfect for Kathryn, for them both. Admiral Paris had been the presiding officer and Phoebe, Kathryn's matron of honour.

 Phoebe had taken up residence at the house in Indiana again, this time with her life partner, Rodea, a Bajoran woman who was a sculptor. Phoebe, who had once hated the house, but after the poignant reunion between the sisters, had finally decided to return to the place of her birth. It was good having Phoebe back in the family; it gave him a sense of family. He was blessed with a wife, a new sister-in-law and a son of whom he was proud.

 A momentary sadness had filled him, for he missed his own sons. A large painting, done by Phoebe from a photograph of the boys, now graced the wall above the hearth in the lounge of Beaver's Lodge. It had been a gift from Kathryn. Rourke's serious look was a complete antithesis to the childish, impish look on Piers's face.

 "We must acknowledge them, Ethan," Kathryn had said, and he hadn't known how to answer her except to wrap her in his arms and hold her until she couldn't breathe. Through Kathryn's gentle encouragement he had begun to look at holovids of the boys again, even those with the fey Mélisande present. It had been too much for him one day when he watched Rourke playing his cello, seeing again the pure determination on the boy's face as he bravely tried to play _The Swan._ Kathryn had come to sit next to him, not speaking a word, yet her presence was all he needed to restore him. Ethan had given her a grateful look. It was becoming easier, although he knew he'd never be free of the pain of losing his children.

 At the wedding, he had been amazed at the generosity showered on them by the Parises, Phoebe and Rodea, and the Ayalas whom they both loved very much. He had himself become an honorary uncle to Mike's sons and little daughter Michaela, an adorable child who was the image of her mother. He had never been uncle or Uncle Ethan and he quite liked the feeling. After Mel and the boys and all his friends died, he had despaired of ever finding happiness again, of experiencing the fullness and joy of family.

 Finally, he felt he belonged.

 Kathryn's paintings were now all at Beaver's Lodge, in the room she had used before. He had removed one wall panel and replaced it with glass to allow maximum light whenever she worked. "The bed stays," she had said peremptorily when he wanted to discard it. Ethan smiled to himself. Kathryn had shown him just how right she was in letting the bed stay. She had made a commitment to live with him at Beaver's Lodge, for she loved the place.

 "I don't think I have ever been happier anywhere else."

 Once, Kathryn had told him that they would journey over hills and through valleys in their relationship, that all journeys came fraught with their own unique adversities. Ethan sighed. He loved Kathryn with the depth of all his soul, and during the past months, he'd discovered just how much he needed her in his life and how prophetic her words had been. He discovered how he could journey again to worlds of darkness, despairing that he would lose her.

 Almost, almost he had lost Kathryn again.

 Not to a man or a ship or a mission, but to a strange, debilitating illness that not only attacked her body, but her mind. After Icheb's finals, they had taken a short vacation. He had to round off the final draft of _The Raging Moon,_ Kathryn wanted just to relax and unwind after a particularly stressful period of work at Headquarters, and Icheb to unwind from the rigours of his studies. Each one had short listed three designations and when they found one on two of the lists, had decided that Jarok, fifth planet of the Kundar System and a week's journey from Earth would be the perfect place to camp out.

 Perfect.

 They had returned home from their vacation on the USS Balshazzar commanded by Magnus Rollins. It was only when they were back on Earth that Kathryn had shown the first symptoms of her illness. She had gone into paroxysms, and then her hallucinations had begun.

 Doctor Elizabeth Paris had attended to Kathryn and she had been forced to call in the assistance of Voyager's EMH who was on Jupiter working with his creator Doctor Zimmerman. Kathryn had languished at death's door during the time they waited for the EMH to arrive, while Doctor Paris could only stabilize her.

 "She has been poisoned, Ethan," Doctor Paris had told him. "I've studied the plant life of Jarok and whittled it down to two of the planet's most innocuous looking rare plants. A brush against the hand was all it took..."

 He remembered the day he and Kathryn had walked along a path through a forest. It was the last day of their vacation and they had taken one of their long walks. That was the only place it could have happened. Kathryn had thought nothing of it and only rubbed the back of her hand briefly.

 She had almost died and it had taken weeks for her to claw back to life and health again.

 He had gone to hell and dwelled in the dark abyss again, seeing the woman he loved almost slipping away from him. During her periods of hallucination, he was the hated Borg whom she didn't recognise as her husband. She spewed venom at him and Icheb, even Phoebe. When her body rested, they took turns keeping a vigil by her bedside. That had been after he had refused to leave Kathryn's side, braving her hatred, her anger, her lapses into morbid, tearful recriminations.

 Many times she didn't recognise him. That had been the hardest.

 It had been a dreadful time, for him and Icheb and Phoebe, and for Doctor Paris and the EMH. But Kathryn had rallied, her body so weak that he had to tend to her most basic needs again. Fortunately, that period lasted only two days and when Kathryn had her lucid moments, she had been as deeply embarrassed as she had been the first time when she had collapsed near Beaver's Lodge.

 During one of her moments of clarity, Kathryn, still deathly ill from the poisoning, took his hand, trying to lift her head.

 "I know...what is happening to me, Ethan. When I'm...like that, I want you to know I love you..."

 If he never had white hair before Kathryn's illness, he would have had them during that harrowing time.

 Now, all he wanted to do was to protect her.

 Ethan gave a soft sigh. Kathryn fought him tooth and nail on that issue. She didn't want him so protective and he couldn't help it. He had almost lost her and she looked so ill, so fragile still. She had recovered and was now recuperating. In a month's time she would take up duty again at Headquarters. Icheb had been given a commission on the USS Gainsbourg as a junior science officer, only too happy that James was serving on the same vessel.

 The sun was going down and he had seen Kathryn get up from the deck chair to make her way slowly towards him. He stopped playing, packing away the bow and cello, carrying it carefully over the rocks to the sandy beach. Then he walked briskly in her direction, his heart throbbing in his throat, or so it felt to him.

 For the first time in his life as an author, he had given someone a manuscript to read even before the publisher and editors got their hands on it. But he had promised Kathryn and now suddenly, he felt nervous about her reaction. If it had been any of his other novels he would have been filled with the normal confidence in his own craft, but this was Kathryn and the story was _The Raging Moon_ , one he had changed midway to its current structure. He hadn't wanted to share parts of the story during the second phase of its writing, knowing what he knew and knowing that she might feel uneasy.

  _"In other words, you're waiting for something to happen?"_

_"In a manner of speaking. The Raging Moon is waiting for scenes to write themselves."_

_"Never heard of such bunkum."_

 He remembered that conversation as if it had taken place only minutes ago. Kathryn had stormed off later and he had berated her for being unable to keep Chakotay out of her mind.

 Ethan looked at her as she approached him. Much healthier now but with a nip in the air, he wanted her to be so careful still. Kathryn had thrown the mohair over her shoulders, and he could see she hugged the manuscript to her bosom. He felt the old breathlessness coming on and the new feeling of apprehension of hearing her comment on his work.

 He had taken a chance with _The Raging Moon_. Midway, he had changed the storyline, starting afresh as it were and discarding almost everything he had written up to that point. There had been times he considered changing its title, but the title had established itself so firmly in his consciousness that he thought it would be sacrilege to give the story any other name. Besides, it fitted the story perfectly...

 Walking faster, he closed the gap between them because Kathryn had stopped.

 He saw the expression on her face. She stood about a metre away from him, the manuscript still clutched in the same way to her. Something tore at him, seeing her standing there, her heart in her eyes, her mouth soft as she smiled, yet those eyes...

 He would die ten thousand times for her and beg the gods to make him come alive again, in her name.

 Now it seemed to him that time stood still, that all the larks had stopped their singing, that the dogs waited patiently, that even the ocean had stopped heaving and became still. Time took its giant hands and pushed away every obstacle of sound, of movement, of sight and left him alone with Kathryn, standing on their favourite beach. He waited.

 Kathryn spoke first.

 "I was angry once when you told me you changed the story."

 "Yes," he said.

 "It's the story of Ethan and Kathryn…"

 "Yes."

 "I remember you once said that some scenes were waiting to write themselves."

 "Yes, Kathryn, sweetheart."

 "I know now what you meant by that..."

 "I waited for you," he said, his heart overflowing with deep emotion.

 "It's our story," she said, her voice sad, yet proud. "Right from the time I arrived home from the Delta Quadrant, the debriefings, the court-martial. Mostly, us…"

 "Mostly us. I wanted it to be mostly us..."

 Kathryn took the manuscript and opened it. Her fingers quivered as she turned to the first page. "I quite like your opening paragraphs."

 "And, Kathryn?"

 And then she started reading...

 

_They were home._

_Crew were reunited with parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, loved ones. The constant buzz of sounds and movement created a haze in which she felt swallowed by grey swirling mists, unable to see straight ahead, or knowing which way to turn._

_She heard laughter – bright laughter. She heard weeping – tears of joy, of sadness, of aching voids that could no longer be filled. She had done what she needed to do: see that every crewman was tended to. That her ship's logs be downloaded to the Federation database, every report from every department over a period of seven years be in the hands of admirals who would decipher, analyse, discard, disseminate, laud, admire, doubt, criticise._

_The voices were around her - loud voices, astringent calls, soft, coaxing voices that asked a child to accept a father never seen, that informed a husband of a child, now seven, that imparted to a daughter news of a mother just died, that told of misery, of denigration, of acceptance, of joy, of loss. Later the voices sat in her head, crowding and overcrowding her spaces until she felt her head would burst. She tried to see the nearest tree where, in helpless rage, she could just bang her forehead until she could no longer think._

_It was not supposed to be like this._

_Homecoming meant being Caesar entering the gates of Rome in triumph and relating his many exploits in Gaul. Homecoming meant Odysseus returning after twenty years and countless trials at sea to a waiting son and wife. Homecoming meant a prisoner, long transformed from his former wickedness, flying into the  arms of his overjoyed, devoted wife and children._

_Her mother was dead. Voices – again – that travelled from the centre of the mists told her of the pining of her mother until at last, too unbearably tired to hold on to life, she simply passed away. Homecoming meant a sister who remained hidden until her face emerged from the mists and the only words that held any power, any meaning, that stabbed too deeply for her to offer an explanation, were "You killed my mother." Just that. Her sister had turned away from her before she could even open her mouth; before she could open her arms for a hug of joy; before she could say, "I'm sorry."_

_Homecoming. No one to wait for her. No loved ones. Everyone of her crew came home to something or with something. They had something to connect them to their past and their present and their future. She lay, like Odysseus, washed up on the shores, turned into an old, old woman who had nothing to look forward to._

 

There were tears in Kathryn's eyes when she finished.

 "I was Odysseus, Ethan. So many times..."

 "And I was the wayfarer...who finally reached his destination," he said softly, caressing her cheek.

 "It's your best work, Ethan. I feel somewhat displaced, reading about Elizabeth and David, knowing we are them… It's a rare honour…"

 He nodded. He wondered how she was going to react to his next words as he drew her gently into his arms.

 "I'm not publishing _The Raging Moon_ …"

 Her body stilled. He thought absently how fragile she still felt.

 "Ethan?" she said, moving out of his embrace to look at him. Her eyes were dark with emotion.

 "The manuscript is my gift to you, darling."

 "But - "

 "You're the only one in the universe to read it."

 A smile played around her mouth. He had seen the brief flash of distress in her eyes; he had known he would see it. He had always known that putting his story out there would breach something too precious, too intensely private. Writing it had become their catharsis. It was worth waiting for this moment, this living moment the story needed for its grand conclusion.

 "I love you, Ethan Bellamy."

 "And I love you, Kathryn Janeway, until my dying day and beyond."

 Ethan Bellamy pulled his wife gently back into his arms again, the manuscript between them. His hand caressed her hair. She felt small against him, so beloved. He heard her give a sweet sigh of contentment.

 He thought of the closing lines of _The Raging Moon_ , the ending he had envisaged since the first day he had met his beloved, since the day she opened her eyes and said to him, _"let me die"._ He thought how in that instant, he had known that Kathryn Janeway would impact on his life and fulfil his destiny.

 Kathryn had read the words and her sigh was a sigh of knowing that the closing paragraphs of _The Raging Moon_  would be exactly like now, where they were standing on their beach, with the giant hands of time suspending all movement and sight and sound except their own. He even thought he felt Kathryn's smile against his chest, just as he felt the glorious touch of her lips.

 They stood there on the beach with the last rays of the sun on his skin as he raised his face to receive its healing power. He gazed into the distance. Far, far he could see, and he imagined he saw someone watching them, someone standing on the high cliff. A person - a man - who stood tall and still. He imagined the man held a small child in his arms. He imagined how lonely that man appeared.

 Ethan thought how men and women threw away chances at happiness, thinking they might find them again, only to discover how lost they were. He thought how men could search their whole lives for something so intangible that no one could understand their meaning, their drive. And so they kept journeying on their lonely quests, strangers in strange lands, wayfarers who discovered that what they were looking for was never out there, but right within their hearts. He thought how they discovered that the treasure that is love everlasting was so close to home that the joy of finding it surprised them unceasingly.

 He was a lonely man who embarked on his quest in search of the intangible, in search of fulfilment.

 Then he found Kathryn.

 

**************

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	20. EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little epilogue.

* * *

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

 "Do you feel nervous?" T'Resa asked as Ethan fiddled with his white bow tie. His mother had helped tie it but he felt claustrophobic in the tuxedo.

 "No." 

"Yet your fingers tremble like thin reeds in the breeze, Ethan Janeway-Bellamy."

 "T'Resa, I'm practicing my vibrato."

 "Like a nervous violinist?  I see. You could have fooled me. I do not feel your edginess."

 T'Resa walked up to him and smoothed his tie. In actual fact, he was nervous. It wasn't his first recital, but this one was before an audience and in the audience there were people who had come specially to watch him perform. They were his family, his extended uncles, aunts and cousins. Some were of Voyager's old crew and their next generation of children.

 "Yeah. I can see how you'll plonk your fingers all over the keyboard and ruin my piece."

 "I do not plonk a honky tonk," she said sternly. "I am Vulcan. Vulcans do not plonk."

 "Fine. Just peep there through the door for me, will you?"

 "No. It is protocol that no one shall peep...through the door. I take the stage first. You know that, Ethan. The audience will applaud. After they have applauded, you will enter and take the stage. Your cello is there. Before everyone arrived, you had already tuned your instrument and played a few arpeggios to warm up."

 "Does that not suggest an absence of nervousness?"

 T'Resa moved closer to him. She was as tall as he. A Vulcan pianist - the granddaughter of Captain Tuvok -  who looked way too imperious for her seventeen years... He was fifteen but they had both started at Juilliard at the same time, when T'Resa was eleven and he was nine.

 "You are nervous. I shall tell you it is…okay to be nervous."

 "T'Resa, I am the son of a former Borg. I'm supposed to have nerves of steel…literally."

 "Come. Are you ready? Professor Von Bulow is busy announcing…"

 Ethan's heart gave a sudden lurch as T'Resa moved to the door, ready to walk onto the stage and take her seat in front of the grand piano. Professor Von Bulow, their grand master, was ninety two but he could still play Elgar well. Ethan had perhaps a few seconds' reprieve before he too had to walk on. He heard the old professor's voice, saw T'Resa disappear through the door.

 They were all here to see him perform Fauré's Élégie. He flexed his fingers, felt his heart hammering against his ribcage. He tucked the bow under his arm and pinched his cheeks. Then he closed his eyes and became quiet for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath he followed T'Resa to the stage.

 "Ethan Janeway-Bellamy…"

 He strode on to the stage, turned to face the audience and bowed. He became calm. The beautiful Fauré Élégie was already settled in his heart and mind and filled him with peace as he took a few seconds to look at the audience. Suddenly, their presence was no longer so intimidating.

 They were all there, sitting in the first row and the second. Elizabeth and Gracie, his sisters, sat in the first row. Gracie smiled broadly, showing her missing front tooth as she clapped hands enthusiastically. She was only six and already she was showing proficiency in playing the violin. Gracie also followed him everywhere. He didn't mind much. She was completely adorable and everyone loved her.

 Elizabeth was eleven years old and she looked serious even though she smiled at him, too. He thought how she would always be a serious young lady, too interested in mathematics and physics. She couldn't even plant a tomato or extract a good meal from the replicators. But he loved Elizabeth dearly. She was heading for the Academy. That much was clear to everyone who knew her well. She had their mother's colouring and gleaming dark hair and grey eyes.

 Their father sat next to Elizabeth. His sisters' cranial ridges were much less pronounced than they were on their older brother. Ethan smiled inwardly. The ridges were all he'd inherited from his father. Icheb Janeway-Bellamy looked proudly at him. Even at forty five, his father's hair was still as dark as when he had been much younger. He didn't look like he had aged at all. Ethan loved his father and he loved his mother Shaira, who was as gentle a woman as Aunt Carmen, Mike Ayala's wife. Gentle and firm. He should remember that about women.

 Ethan recalled how Uncle James told him that his father had never been interested in Shaira Begum Khan during their Academy years and even in the years that followed.

 "The first time your father saw your mother he told me that his heart did nothing but beat in the _normal_ way," Uncle James had said, emphasising the word 'normal'. "And look at him now. He has eyes only for Shaira and his heart does nothing but beat in warp drive."

 And Shaira Janeway-Bellamy, with her Indian heritage, graced him with her most beauteous smile for she was a very beautiful woman.

 "I was a fool to let her go, but she loved your daddy, Ethan," Uncle James had told him one day. Ethan thought how glad he was that his daddy married Shaira and produced three children.

 Now his gaze travelled to the people in the second row. Uncle James, Mike and Carmen Ayala and their daughter Michaela, who was a Starfleet lieutenant. Next to Michaela sat Kathryn Hansen, his aunt. She was only five years old when she was adopted by his grandparents, just as they had adopted his father, Icheb, as their own child. Katie was also a young Starfleet lieutenant and he adored her.

 Ethan took a deep breath as his eyes rested on his grandparents, now seventy years old. He loved his parents, but if anything, he loved his grandparents with all his heart and much more. Kathryn Janeway-Bellamy looked so proud as his eyes met hers. She smiled at him, her mouth curving in the same way that he smiled too. He had vague memories still of how mad she had been because Grandpa told her she couldn't remain sixty forever and the last time she tried that stunt, she wanted to be fifty forever. Grandma Kathryn raised her hand only slightly in salute, a hand that rested against her heart. He knew, even though he couldn't see it, that her other hand was held lovingly in the hand of Grandpa Ethan, who loved her to pieces. Everyone could see _that_.

 His eyes rested finally on Ethan Bellamy. Young Ethan thought his heart would burst with pride. He firmly believed there was not a grandson in the Federation who could have wished for a better role model than he had.

 He was passionate about his grandparents who encouraged him in his art, who had stimulated him from the moment they noticed that he had a gift of music. They were his greatest heroes. Grandma Kathryn still taught at the Academy and she told him that should he ever make the decision to enter, she'd be there to teach him, come hell or high water. He rather liked the high water bit and Grandma was still sprightly for her seventy years.

 Grandpa had his latest novel published and as usual, he had given Grandma Kathryn the leather bound manuscript to read before it went to the publishers.

 He just plain loved them.

 He had his grandfather's eyes, they all said, right from the time he was old enough to understand. He also had snow white hair like his grandfather. When he asked Grandpa about it once, he was told how it was in his genes and how it jumped a generation, even though his father Icheb was not born of Kathryn and Ethan. Except for his cranial ridges, he bore little resemblance to his own parents, although Elizabeth and Gracie looked like Icheb and Shaira.

 "Then I'm very happy, Grandpa," he told Ethan. "I stand out!"

 "You always will, son," his grandfather had said and the older man's eyes had gone soft when he spoke.

 And so, along with Grandpa Ethan's white hair and green eyes, he had also inherited his grandfather's talent to play the cello. His very earliest memories were of his grandfather sitting on the deck of Beaver's Lodge, playing the cello. It fascinated him, seeing the older man bent over the instrument, hearing sounds that drifted from the very heavens to his ears.

 Grandma used to tell him that Grandpa was communicating with the gods, but he, young Ethan, knew differently. Grandpa was playing all his music for Grandma Kathryn. Ethan gave a little sigh of pleasure. He was sure glad he was the first to follow in Ethan Bellamy's footsteps.

 Which was why he was here today, to perform in his first public recital. The applause had died down now and he moved carefully to sit down on his stool, then hugged the cello to him. It felt like an old friend. He stroked the wood, wondering for a moment at the brilliance of the instrument, his grandfather's Khalmeyer handed down through so many generations.

 He looked at his grandfather again. The older man nodded smilingly.

 Then Ethan turned to T'Resa who was waiting for his cue. He gave an imperceptible nod. T'Resa's fingers caressed the keys in the first notes and in harmonious counterpoint, young Ethan bent his head and filled the small auditorium with the first melodious sounds of Fauré's Élégie.

 

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 THANK YOU, EVERY SINGLE READER WHO ADDED A COMMENT TO THIS WORK, EVERY PERSON WHO GAVE A KUDO!


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